The Police Headquarters and Little More: Wab Kinew’s Focus for Investigating the Katz-Sheegl Era at City Hall

The city of Winnipeg will finally get a provincial inquiry into the procurement, construction and real estate scandals of the Sam Katz-Phil Sheegl era.

It’s just not the research the city council called for in 2017 — and opinions are divided on what that means.

Seven years ago, during former Mayor Brian Bowman’s first term, council voted to ask the provincial government to launch a public inquiry into “all matters” related to the construction of Winnipeg’s police headquarters and a series of municipal real estate transactions . that were examined in an external study from 2014.

The Council also asked the county to review conflict of interest and disclosure requirements for both elected officials and high-ranking officials, as well as to review procedures governing how these officials may or may not conduct business with each other and with parties outside of City Hall.

The broad scope of the requested investigation reflected the tumult of the final years of former Mayor Sam Katz’s decade in office, which largely coincided with the appointment of his friend, Phil Sheegl, initially as the city’s real estate director and eventually as chief administrative officer .

Former premiers Brian Pallister and Heather Stefanson denied the council’s request, initially claiming an investigation would be imprudent while the RCMP was investigating the police headquarters project, and later stating it was inappropriate while the city was pursuing a civil proceedings against Sheegl.

The police investigation was concluded in 2019 without charges, while the civil lawsuit concluded in 2022 with a court ruling that Sheegl accepted a bribe of $327,200 from police headquarters contractor Armik Babakhanians.

Current Prime Minister Wab Kinew, who conducted an investigation in 2023 as an NDP election promise, made clear on Monday the scope of that investigation – and it is much more limited than what the council requested in 2017.

Kinew said he expects the provincial investigation will only involve the police headquarters project. It has already been the sole subject of a city-commissioned audit, the partial subject of the property assessment, and was the focus of the RCMP investigation and civil lawsuits that ultimately led to the public gaining access to hundreds of thousands of documents . emails and other documents on the subject.

River Heights-Fort Garry Coun. John Orlikow, who was elected in 2009, said he is disappointed that other city construction projects and real estate transactions, which are subject to far less scrutiny, will not be the subject of that review.

“It’s too limited,” Orlikow said Tuesday of the proposed study. “I was hoping this would be more fluid and that they would go where the evidence led.”

Mayor Scott Gillingham was relatively neutral on the subject. Gillingham said in an interview Tuesday that he remains open to a broader provincial investigation, but noted that this is the investigation Kinew promised during his campaign.

The mayor also expressed hope that an investigation by police headquarters would answer some outstanding questions.

Gillingham said he wants to know how a project started when a $19 million proposal to replace the crumbling stone Tyndall facade of the old Public Safety Building in 2006 grew into a $214 million mega-project to purchase and renovate less than a decade later .

Paul Thomas, professor emeritus of political studies at the University of Manitoba, said the narrow focus of Kinew’s proposed study would be more practical than a broader inquiry.

“The headquarters scandal appeared to be the most egregious, has been the subject of the most extensive investigation and, as a result, has been the target of the greatest public concern and anger,” Thomas said via email.

“Focusing the investigation solely on this issue makes sense from a political point of view, if the goal is to restore public confidence in the integrity and confidence of the city government,” he added.

“A broad mandate could lead to a lengthy and costly process that produces answers (or dead ends) to yesterday’s problems.”

Other possible research topics

So what else would an investigation investigate? Previous audits and reviews commissioned by the city suggested six topics.

One of these is the city’s fire station replacement program, under which the city built four new stations from 2009 to 2012. audit commissioned by the city concluded that the city awarded $15 million in station construction projects on a non-competitive basis.

A second is the purchase of the former Canada Post office tower and warehouse on Graham Avenue for $29.25 million in 2009. This was the building later converted into police headquarters.

The real estate research commissioned by the city, carried out by EY in 2014 determined that the city had not conducted an independent appraisal of the building and that other properties would not serve as a site for police headquarters.

A third is the Parker land swap, in which the city traded 24 acres of unused land in Fort Garry for 3.6 acres of maintained Fort Rouge land owned by developer Andrew Marquess. The real estate investigation concluded that the city had conducted the transaction in a hasty manner and had not conducted an appraisal of the property.

A fourth is the aborted sale of land in The Forks, known as Parcel Four, to the Canalta hotel chain in 2012. The property assessment found that the city had not made the land available to other potential buyers and had not notified the municipality of an amount of $10 million. appraisal before the land was offered to the chain for $5.9 million.

A fifth is the 2012 sale of the former Canad Inns Stadium site for $30.25 million to a partnership between Shindico Realty and Cadillac Fairview. The real estate investigation found that the city provided information about the proposed sale to one proponent before that information was made public.

A sixth was the 2010 sale of the Winnipeg Square parkade for $24.6 million to the real estate investment trust that owned Winnipeg Square. The real estate audit concluded that the city was unaware of a $43 million appraisal for the property and that broker Shindico Realty had failed to disclose that it represented both the buyer and the seller.

Orlikow said he fears that by 2024 it will be too late to bring all this to attention.

“This should have been done years ago,” he said. “It’s too late, but hopefully we can get something out of it.”