Stefanson denies she pushed for mine approval post-election

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This article was published 13/01/2024 (653 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After announcing she would be stepping down as the head of the PC party, former premier Heather Stefanson denied any prior knowledge of an alleged attempt to approve a proposed silica sand mine by an ex-cabinet minister in the final days of the party’s leadership.

Former PC ministers Kevin Klein and Rochelle Squires claim they received calls from Jeff Wharton Oct. 12 (during the two-week transition period between the NDP winning the election and being sworn into office) asking them to approve an environmental licence for Alberta-based Sio Silica Corp. to mine near Vivian in the Rural Municipality of Springfield.

These claims came after Premier Wab Kinew accused the Progressive Conservatives of trying to rubber stamp the proposal during the transition period.

Both Klein and Squires have said they refused to approve the project.

The PC party met Saturday to discuss new leadership election rules. Stefanson gave a speech announcing she would be resigning as leader of the party, but maintaining her Tuxedo seat, and then recused herself from the conversation.

Speaking on the controversy for the first time, she said she was not aware of Wharton, or anyone in the party, trying to push the project through post-election.

“I don’t know. You’d have to talk to (Wharton) about that. I don’t know what conversations he may have had,” she told reporters outside the meeting hall. “But all I know is that we didn’t — we respected the caretaker convention and we didn’t move forward with a licence.”

The caretaker convention is a democratic principle that prevents government from making serious decisions while the legislature is being dissolved.

Wharton has refused to comment on the allegations, other than to deny he tried to influence Klein and Squires. He attended Saturday’s event virtually.

Walking out of Saturday’s meeting, Klein said he phoned Stefanson the day Wharton called him to discuss what he had asked.

“I told her exactly what I was told on the phone call… she paused for concern, I would say, and I immediately let her know,” he said.

He said she did not attempt to pressure him to change his mind.

NDP caucus chair Mike Moyes filed complaints against both Stefanson and Wharton with Ethics Commissioner Jeffrey Schnoor Friday, asking him to investigate both MLAs for violating the Conflict of Interest Act.

In a Free Press op-ed, Squires said Wharton called the mining project important to Stefanson, but she was unable to direct an approval herself due to a conflict of interest.

Stefanson denied having any financial interest in Sio Silica.

“I have no conflicts,” she said. “That’s a fact. And I didn’t issue the licence during the the caretaker time. Those are the facts. I don’t know what kind of discussions, cabinet ministers have discussions between themselves all the time, and I’m not privy to every conversation that takes place.”

Stefanson confirmed that the proposed project was presented to the NDP government during the transition, but said it was to bring it to the incoming government’s attention, and said she wasn’t present for those discussions.

“It’s a very important thing, we’re talking about thousands of jobs for Manitoba,” she said. “That’s a significant issue, and so we felt that they should be aware of it. So we made them aware of it, and they didn’t want to move on it, so we didn’t move on it.”

As to whether having an ethics probe looking into the party could damage its reputation, Stefanson called the complaint against her baseless.

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“I’ll wait to hear from the ethics commissioner if he decides to move forward with it,” she said. “There’s no basis to this whatsoever.”

Without divulging details, Steinbach MLA Kelvin Goertzen said he believed the caretaker convention had been maintained by the Progressive Conservatives.

“Jeff Wharton didn’t phone me, I certainly heard about some of these things during the caretaker convention (period), I gave my very strong opinion about it at that time, and any other information, I’ll provide to Jeffrey Schnoor if he wants to hear it,” he said.

Springfield RM Coun. Mark Miller, who opposes the mining project, had previously called for an ethics investigation and Friday called the complaints a “huge step forward for democracy and transparency.”

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca

Malak Abas
Reporter

Malak Abas is a city reporter at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg’s North End, she led the campus paper at the University of Manitoba before joining the Free Press in 2020. Read more about Malak.

Every piece of reporting Malak 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.