Manitoba holds firm on declining Winnipeg call for inquiry into real estate, construction scandals
Manitoba’s PC government says it’s still too soon to call a public inquiry into the real-estate and construction scandals that plagued the City of Winnipeg more than a decade ago despite the resolution of a pair of city lawsuits over its police headquarters.
In 2013 and 2014, the final two years of former mayor Sam Katz’s time in office, a trio of external audits examined what went wrong with the commission of Winnipeg’s police headquarters, the construction of four new fire-paramedic stations and major real-estate transactions that included the sale of Canad Inns Stadium, the Parker land swap and the purchase of the former Canada Post complex in downtown Winnipeg.
The police headquarters project was also the subject of a five-year RCMP investigation that concluded without charges as well as civil litigation by the city against former city chief administrative officer Phil Sheegl and primary police-HQ contractor Caspian Construction.
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