Probe to have no bearing on sand mine licence

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This article was published 12/01/2024 (604 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

An ethics probe won’t affect the timing of a decision on an environmental licence for a controversial silica sand mine near Vivian, says Manitoba’s environment minister.

“I would suggest that the ethics probe and the licensing decision are entirely distinct,” Tracy Schmidt told the Free Press on Friday. “It has no impact on our environmental licensing decision.”

An NDP backbencher has filed a complaint with the ethics commissioner over an alleged attempt by former Tory cabinet minister Jeff Wharton to have the project approved after his government was defeated Oct. 3.

Schmidt called the allegations “potentially a real affront to democracy, the democratic process and the peaceful transfer of power,” and noted she was not contacted by any Tory cabinet minister about the licence during the time the government transitioned to the NDP.

“Our cabinet was made aware very early on via the departments and the public service that during that ‘caretaker’ period there were efforts to perhaps issue a licence,” the Rossmere MLA said.

“But I can say that these details… about the phone calls between Jeff Wharton and other cabinet ministers — I found out those details along with yourself and the public.”

Wharton’s former Tory cabinet colleagues say the then-economic development minister called and asked them to approve the licence for the sand mine project.

The Red River North MLA has since provided various responses to the allegations, including any conversation he had with colleagues was subject to cabinet confidentiality. In other interviews, he has denied the allegations.

Speaking with the Free Press in December, Premier Wab Kinew said the NDP would be “backing up a few steps” on the licensing decision in light of the allegations.

Schmidt said Friday while she and Kinew are “in lockstep” on the Sio Silica file, “no licensing decision has been made yet, and certainly will not be made until a more (comprehensive) technical review is complete.”

The proposal has been under review by the department’s technical advisers since the Clean Environment Commission issued a report in June 2023.

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Schmidt said the advisers are “digging down into the facts,” including a comprehensive review of the proposed airlift extraction method, which has not been used to mine at the proposed scale anywhere in the world.

The NDP has also re-engaged the Brokenhead Ojibway First Nation for further consultation, after determining the consultations that took place early in the environmental approval process were “insufficient,” Schmidt said.

“We are very committed to engaging… with their leadership on a nation-to-nation basis to make sure that their concerns and their interests are looked after.”

Schmidt said certain recommendations in the commission’s report, including calls for full-scale testing of the extraction method and more detailed monitoring and mitigation plans, would be a part of the environmental licence, should one be issued.

julia-simone.rutgers@freepress.mb.ca

Julia-Simone Rutgers
Reporter

Julia-Simone Rutgers is the Manitoba environment reporter for the Free Press and The Narwhal. She joined the Free Press in 2020, after completing a journalism degree at the University of King’s College in Halifax, and took on the environment beat in 2022. Read more about Julia-Simone.

Julia-Simone’s role is part of a partnership with The Narwhal, funded by the Winnipeg Foundation. Every piece of reporting Julia-Simone produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.