Call for police HQ audit from right and left

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This article was published 14/01/2014 (4604 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A pair of political activists on Winnipeg’s left and right are calling on council to reconsider last fall’s decision not to further investigate the city’s over-budget police headquarters renovation.

Colin Craig of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and Dave Sauer of the Winnipeg Labour Council held a joint press conference Monday to reiterate their support for an audit of the police HQ project, whose total cost ballooned to $210 million late last year from $135 million in 2009.

Standing across the street from the Graham Avenue structure, a former Canada Post mail-processing facility, Sauer and Craig urged Winnipeggers to call every member of council who voted against the audit in November.

“The last audit motion was only defeated by a narrow margin of nine to seven, so if we can convince two (more) members of council to do the right thing and vote for an audit, then we can learn from mistakes like this and move forward together as a city,” Craig said.

During the November debate about the audit, Mayor Sam Katz claimed the answers to all questions about the project can be found in an administrative report, while Transcona Coun. Russ Wyatt said there was no point spending money on an audit whose conclusions would be predictable. Most councillors who voted against the audit said they opposed the potential cost of another investigation.

Craig and Sauer said the administrative report Katz cited includes inaccuracies and omissions. They said no one can explain why council was not informed the guaranteed maximum price for the core construction component of the police HQ renovation was based on a design that was only 30 per cent complete and subject to change.

They also said no one has explained why problems with the building were not discovered or were overlooked at the outset, why furniture and other police needs were left out of the original budget or why the construction-bonding requirement for the renovation was reduced below industry standards.

“We have to remember it was the administration that led us into this mess in the first place. So we believe we need an outside set of eyes,” Craig said.

Sauer and Craig said they usually do not co-operate, although both lobbied against a city plan to sell Parcel Four, a surface parking lot opposite the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, during the spring of 2012.

Council’s refusal to audit the police headquarters brought the two activists together, Sauer said.

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca