Tories file ethics complaint against cabinet minister

The Progressive Conservatives filed an ethics complaint against an NDP cabinet minister Monday after a government contract was awarded to a taxi company his wife owns a stake in.

Deputy PC caucus chair Josh Guenter (Borderland) filed the complaint Monday, accusing Public Service Delivery Minister Mintu Sandhu of failing to recuse himself in the awarding of the $1.7-million dollar deal to Duffy’s Taxi Ltd.

“What I find deeply concerning is that his wife has a vested interest — a financial stake — in Duffy’s Taxi,” Guenter said after question period Monday. “We’re calling on the ethics commissioner to investigate this situation.”

Sandhu disputed the allegation Monday, saying the government contract with Duffy’s was signed Oct. 8, 2024 — more than a month before he was sworn in as minister on Nov. 13.

“It never came across my desk,” Sandhu said in an interview. His disclosure statement, filed online, notes his spouse owns a Duffy’s cab.

The written complaint, submitted to Ethics Commissioner Jeffrey Schnoor, says that within months of being sworn in as the public service delivery minister, the Department of Public Service Delivery issued a contract worth up to $1.7 million to Duffy’s Taxi.

Sandhu said the Tories were “trying to change the channel” after house Speaker Tom Lindsey announced Monday that former PC premier Heather Stefanson and former cabinet minister Jeff Wharton had both paid fines for violating ethics legislation in 2023.

The fines were recommended by Schnoor after Stefanson, Wharton and former deputy premier Cliff Cullen tried to get a controversial mining project approved in the dying days of the PC government after it had lost the 2023 election.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca