Kinew not swayed by PM’s support for silica sand mining project

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s high-profile support for a proposed silica sand mining project in Manitoba this week didn’t move the needle at all for Premier Wab Kinew.

“I work for the people of eastern Manitoba, not for the Davos crowd,” Kinew told a local radio station Thursday. “We’re going to continue to put the drinking water and the priorities of the people who live in this province first.”

Carney, attending a summit of G7 leaders in France Wednesday, issued a statement hailing an investment partnership between Sio Silica, a Canadian company, and Germany’s RCT Solutions on the contentious and not yet approved project that would extract sand from a large area in the RM of Springfield east of Winnipeg and turn it into solar panels. Area residents have expressed concern that the process could impact the aquifer that provides drinking water for thousands.

Sio Silica’s president issued a statement Wednesday saying the company is pleased to have its mining project recognized by the Carney government on the world stage.

Kinew was asked Thursday if he was was caught off guard by the prime minister’s support.

“I’m never surprised by the lobbying efforts of Sio Silica,” he said.

Last year, Manitoba’s ethics commissioner ruled that former premier Heather Stefanson and two of her cabinet ministers violated the conflict of interest act by trying to ram through an environmental licence for Sio Silica in the dying days of the Progressive Conservative government, after it lost the 2023 election, but before Kinew’s NDP government was sworn in.

The NDP nixed the proposed project when it took office.

“This company had a shareholder and a board member try to force cabinet ministers to approve this project after the government had lost power,” Kinew said Thursday.

In December, he ordered a public inquiry into the matter, citing the need for transparency and accountability.

“Now they have, within their rights, come back to apply for a second try at getting an environmental licence.”

Kinew said his government can look “objectively” at Sio Silica’s latest application. He went on to say, “I want people to be absolutely clear — in rural Manitoba, I’m on your side. I’m not on the rich, elite side. I’m working for you folks.”

Kinew’s concerns about Sio Silica didn’t prevent Carney from promoting the company’s latest proposal for Manitoba, said David McLaughlin, former clerk of the executive council and former prime minister Brian Mulroney’s chief of staff.

“I find it revealing and important that the PM explicitly referred to the Sio Silica project in a formal news release,” McLaughlin said Thursday.

“To the PM and the federal government, this means Sio Silica is a viable project deserving consideration. It also means that inside the federal government, this project has made its way up the ladder to garner the attention of decision-makers, political and bureaucratic.”

The privately held company is not shy about lobbying government, said University of Manitoba political studies professor emeritus Paul Thomas

“The Sio Silica case involves the most high-profile, intense, aggressive and persistent lobbying campaign that I have witnessed in over 50 years,” he said.

“It led to a major scandal, damaged the reputation of the company and made a second licence application more difficult.”

McLaughlin said Kinew, who has often said “the economic horse pulls the social cart” was likely caught off guard.

“At some point the NDP government has to decide whether to keep making this a political football or get serious about economic development projects that fit the moment the country is in,” he said.

The premier likes the attention that goes with saying “no” to projects such as this or the hyper-scale AI data centre proposed for south of Winnipeg that he rejected earlier this month, McLaughlin said.

“This can endear you to local communities and garner a headline. But the heavy lifting of real economic development is finding ways to get to yes on jobs and investment,” he said.

“Failing to advance this is at odds with his own new economic development strategy which calls for ‘facilitating productive investment.’”

Although Kinew said his government will be objective in considering Sio Silica’s second application, “many people — not just the opposition and its allies — will be skeptical that this is the case,” Thomas said.

He said Kinew’s public inquiry into the former government’s failed attempt to approve the company’s first environmental licence application raises questions about whether it can get a fair hearing on its latest project — and if the inquiry is timed to influence the provincial election that must take place by Oct. 5, 2027.

“There is a legitimate question of whether the company can receive a fair hearing during a period when a public inquiry is underway,” Thomas said.

If it happens during an election cycle, “the NDP will remind voters that (PC Leader) Obby Khan was a cabinet minister in a PC government which violated the conflict of interest law and the caretaker convention,” he said.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca