Ethics commissioner recommends fines for former premier and ministers, breached act

After a lengthy investigation, the ethics commissioner has found former Premier Heather Stefanson and two ministers guilty of trying to exert pressure to give approval for a sand extraction project in the Southeast, fining them thousands of dollars.

In his report to the Manitoba Legislature, commissioner Jeffrey Schnoor found Stefanson and MLAs Cliff Cullen and Jeff Wharton breached the Conflict of Interest (Members and Ministers) Act when they tried to influence former Minister of Environment and Climate Kevin Klein to approve the sand extraction project by Sio Silica during the transition period between the outgoing Conservatives and the incoming NDP governments.

Schnoor recommended penalizing Stefanson $18,000, while fining Cullen $12,000 and Wharton $10,000. The Legislative Assembly now has to vote on whether to accept or reject the commissioner’s recommendations. It can’t impose any other penalty and its decision is final.

Nineteen individuals, including the respondent cabinet ministers, were interviewed under oath. Hundreds of pages of emails, briefing notes, text messages and phone records were reviewed for the 100-page report.

“Well it’s certainly not a surprise,” said Springfield Coun. Mark Miller, who opposed the Sio Silica project from the beginning. “We felt that they were overstepping their caretaker duties when we first learned of this situation and that perhaps there were special interests by either the premier or the minister or some other people involved in this that they were pushing so hard to get this through so there’s no shock to it. I’m pleased that it’s come to light and that it’s truthful that what we saw was also echoed in the ethics commissioner’s report.”

The commissioner wrote that during the transition period between the provincial election on Oct. 3, 2023, and the swearing in of the current government on Oct. 18, 2023, Stefanson and Cullen, who was then minister of finance and deputy premier, “took steps to approve the license for the mining operation proposed by Sio Silica Corporation, without the approval of the incoming government.”

Under the direction of Stefanson, Cullen told Warton, then minister of economic development, investment, and trade (and current MLA for Red River North), that Klein could approve the licence directly. When asked by Warton to approve the project, Klein declined. Warton then went to Klein’s first acting minister Rochelle Squires to approve the licence whereupon she also declined to do so.

By attempting to have the project license issued during the transition period without the consent of the incoming NDP government, Stefanson, Cullen and Wharton breached sections 2, 3 and 5 of the Act.

“A government that loses an election has lost the confidence of the people and has lost the legitimacy to do anything beyond maintaining the status quo until the new government can take office. The exercise of power by an outgoing government to make significant decisions except in the most exceptional circumstances is a serious affront to our democratic institutions and to voters,” read the report.

Schnoor found no evidence that the premier and her ministers were trying to gain financial benefit for themselves or their families nor trying to further their own private interests. He did find that their action would have furthered the private interests of Sio Silica, which at the time was prepared to go public on the stock exchange.

Sio Silica was looking for a license to drill thousands of wells in Springfield’s aquifer to extract sand that it would then sell to companies making solar panels and electronic parts. The project was widely rejected by the Springfield community due to the danger it posed to the community’s drinking water. The project also split Springfield’s council.

“I’m a firm believer in the system that allows us to have due process and a due process in my understanding is the three individuals were found guilty under the ethics code and I’m fine with that. Absolutely fine with that,” said Springfield Mayor Pat Therrien.

Therrien wouldn’t speculate as to why the premier and ministers pushed to have the licence approved but Miller thinks it has to do with “scratch my back,(and I’ll) scratch yours” as he claims there were people who would have benefited from the projects in Springfield and that there were people connected to the Conservative party who sit on the Sio Silica board.

“I had no obligation to do so but reached out to the incoming government and fully considered their views before deciding on what to do,” a written statement issued by Stefanson’s lawyer Blair Graham to the Winnipeg Free Press read. “No licence was issued to the applicant by my government.”

Any decisions she made before the new government was sworn in were made “to further and protect the public interest… I was premier, I did my job, and when the people elected a new government, I deferred to the NDP government and respected their views on how to proceed,” wrote Graham to the Free Press.

For his part, Wharton, who is still a sitting MLA, wrote an apology for his involvement stating in a media release that it was never his intention to “breach any convention or parliamentary tradition” and that he accepts the ruling.

“I fully cooperated with the investigation, I have learned from it, and I am committed to helping others learn from it as well. I apologize for any of my conduct which was found to fall short of my parliamentary obligations or personal standard of ethics,” he wrote.

Sio Silica was happy with the investigation and its findings.

“It is important for all Manitobans to know that Sio Silica was not involved in the issues under investigation, and our company has always respected the independence of Manitoba’s regulatory processes,” stated Sio Silica CEO Feisal Somji in a press release.

Former Minister of Agriculture and current MLA for Interlake-Gimli Derek Johnson was also investigated and found not to have breached the Act.