NDP ‘taking the time to get this right’ amid calls for ethics probe of mine project – Winnipeg Free Press

The NDP government isn’t rushing a decision on whether to ask Manitoba’s ethics commissioner to investigate allegations the Tories tried to push through a controversial proposed silica sand mine.

Premier Wab Kinew told reporters the NDP is deciding how to move forward, after being asked if he will request a review into whether provincial ethics rules were breached.

“Our team, mindful of the fact there is a new conflict-of-interest law which took effect on the election, and being very aware of all the public commentary that has happened recently, is taking the time to get this right,” Kinew said Wednesday.

“We have to proceed judiciously and carefully on this subject and our future course of action, because this is an area where our democracy is at stake.”

Kinew wouldn’t say if his government has obtained documents that could support a complaint to ethics commissioner Jeffrey Schnoor.

“I think that we’ll have more to say on this in the near future,” he said.

Last month, Kinew accused the former Progressive Conservative government of trying to approve Calgary-based Sio Silica’s proposed project during a transition period after the Tories lost the Oct. 3 election.

Two former Tory cabinet ministers — Kevin Klein and Rochelle Squires — later claimed PC MLA Jeff Wharton, then-economic development minister, asked them to approve the project during separate phone calls Oct. 12, six days before the NDP cabinet was sworn in.

Klein and Squires, who lost their seats in the election, have said they refused.

They said such an approval would breach the transition period’s caretaker convention, when an outgoing party is to refrain from making major or controversial decisions that cannot be immediately undone by an incoming government.

In a Free Press op-ed, Squires said Wharton described the project as being of significant importance to outgoing premier Heather Stefanson, but she couldn’t direct an approval herself due to a conflict of interest.

Stefanson (PC leader and MLA for Tuxedo) has not taken questions on the controversy. A spokesperson has said Stefanson had no conflict of interest with Sio Silica.

Speaking to the Free Press earlier this month, Wharton would neither confirm nor deny he pressured Klein or Squires to approve the project.

The Red River North MLA said any such conversations were subject to cabinet confidentiality and he had no intent, nor the authority, to direct an approval.

A PC spokesperson said Stefanson and Wharton were not available for interviews Thursday.

The NDP government is reviewing Sio Silica’s proposal and has not yet announced a decision.

Sio Silica wants to extract silica sand, which is used to create solar panels and computer chips, and process it at a new facility outside Vivian, about 35 kilometres east of Winnipeg.

Some council members in the Rural Municipality of Springfield, where mining activity is proposed to take place, want Schnoor to investigate.