Manitoba’s Progressive Conservative party said an audit of Manitoba Hydro’s Keeyask project in Northern Manitoba was not released for political reasons but the auditor general said it isn’t yet complete.
PC leader Brian Pallister requested the audit – focusing on about $224 million of funding provided to First Nations between affected by the development of the BiPole III transmission line and the Keeyask, Wuskwatim and Conawapa generating station as reimbursement for negotiation costs – in 2013 and it got underway in 2014.
“We understand the report is complete,” Pallister said to reporters on March 10. “We understand the report’s been complete for a long time. We wonder where it is. We’d like the government to agree, and I’ll ask the premier in question period today to agree, that the auditor general could release the information by unanimous agreement of the house.”
A PC news release said auditor general Norman Ricard had told the public accounts committee in December that the report wasn’t being released because of the upcoming 90-day pre-election communications ban, which started in January, that would prevent government officials from making statements about the report.
Ricard told the Winnipeg Sun the report was not yet complete and likely wouldn’t be complete until June because of a backlog of work in the auditor general’s office and that the government had not given him any directives about when to release his report.
