Ethics probe would get to bottom of mine controversy

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This article was published 03/01/2024 (663 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

What was Jeff Wharton thinking?

In the days following the NDP’s Oct. 3 election victory, the then-Tory economic development minister, who is the MLA for Red River North, is accused of trying to get two cabinet colleagues — then-environment minister Kevin Klein and then-acting environment minister Rochelle Squires — to issue an environmental licence to Sio Silica, an Alberta company that’s trying to establish a controversial silica mining operation at Vivian, east of Winnipeg.

If true, Wharton’s request was both unusual and — from all other available sources of information — poorly conceived for four important reasons.

First, the project was already a lightning rod for a coalition of interveners and environmentalists, and had drawn howls of protest from local residents. Any move to license it last fall outside of the normal process would have triggered a political firestorm.

Second, the Clean Environment Commission had recommended against issuing Sio Silica a licence, based on concerns about the project’s untested technology. Such concerns were significant enough that a second technical assessment was ordered.

Again, issuing a licence outside of the normal assessment process would have undermined the credibility of Manitoba environmental law.

Third, by virtue of something called the “caretaker convention,” defeated governments are generally prohibited from doing anything substantive during the “lame duck” period between an election and the arrival of the new government. This would have qualified as decidedly substantive.

Finally, issuing a licence outside the normal process would have triggered a raft of appeals and legal challenges from opponents and interveners that would have, no doubt, quashed it before Sio Silica could put a single hole in the ground.

If the allegations are true, it’s hard to tell whether Wharton was naive, blatantly unethical or was serving some other, more nefarious agenda. Unfortunately, he has refused to explain his actions and is hiding behind the flimsy claim the entire issue is protected by cabinet confidentiality.

For the record, going outside of normal cabinet channels to get an environmental licence for a private company is not protected by cabinet confidentiality. Wharton only needs a modicum of courage to speak openly about what he did.

In the absence of a more reasonable explanation, his actions have prompted a lot of inconvenient questions about the former Progressive Conservative government, politically aligned third parties and their relationships with Sio Silica.

Although Wharton will not explain his reasons for allegedly circumventing due process, he has left a few bread crumbs to follow.

In her Free Press column on this issue, Squires said Wharton claimed he was making the request on behalf of former premier and Tory leader Heather Stefanson, who could not be directly involved because she was in a conflict of interest.

The PC party issued a news release in the wake of that allegation denying any conflict of interest existed. However, it’s tough to ignore the fact there is a raft of high-profile Tories, who Stefanson knows well, involved directly or indirectly in the Sio Silica proposal.

When you start to examine some of the people involved, you can see where there might be the beginnings of an appearance of a conflict of interest.

For example, Marni Larkin, Stefanson’s close friend and the campaign manager for the PC party’s failed re-election campaign, did communications for CanWhite Sands, which later became Sio Silica, in 2020 and 2021.

As well, two high-profile Tories are on the Sio Silica board of directors: lawyer David Filmon, son of former PC premier Gary Filmon; and Mike Pyle, CEO of Exchange Income Corp.

Pyle, a longtime party supporter and donor, was named by the Tories as chair of the Manitoba First fund, a government-sponsored venture capital fund created last year.

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Although he can be considered a proponent of Sio Silica, in an emailed statement Pyle denied that EIC had any direct or indirect business relationship with the company and did not have any role in lobbying the government to approve the silica project.

Are any or all of these relationships directly connected to Wharton’s alleged bid to get an environmental licence for Sio Silica? It’s tough to say, given that Wharton won’t explain his actions.

A new Manitoba ethics law, which took effect the day after the October election, might help get to the bottom of this mess. But that would require an MLA to make a formal complaint about unethical behaviour, and that hasn’t happened yet.

Until Wharton fully discloses what he did and why he did it, either on his own or at the request of an investigation, we are left only with questions — very inconvenient questions for those in the Tory universe.

dan.lett@winnipegfreepress.com

Dan Lett
Columnist

Dan Lett is a columnist for the Free Press, providing opinion and commentary on politics in Winnipeg and beyond. Born and raised in Toronto, Dan joined the Free Press in 1986.  Read more about Dan.

Dan’s columns are built on facts and reactions, but offer his personal views through arguments and analysis. The Free Press’ editing team reviews Dan’s columns before they are posted online or published in print — part of the our tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.