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Outgoing Mayor Sam Katz speaks to reporters at Winnipeg city hall following his last council meeting on Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2014.
(CBC)
- Former Winnipeg mayor Sam Katz has arrived for the third day of the provincial public inquiry into the procurement and construction of the Winnipeg police headquarters. The entire day has been set aside for testimony from Katz, who served as mayor from 2004 to 2014.
- By the time the police service moved into the building in 2016, the cost had increased from a $135-million budget to $214 million due to construction delays, change orders and flood damage.
- The project that has already been subject to two external audits, a five-year RCMP investigation that concluded without charges and two lawsuits.
- While Katz was not a party to any lawsuit related to the police headquarters and is not accused of any wrongdoing, Manitoba Court of Appeal Justice Christopher Mainella said in 2023 the former mayor can be considered a material witness.
- Katz "received precisely half the money" paid to former Winnipeg chief administrative officer Phil Sheegl by Armik Babakhanians, the principal of police HQ contractor Caspian Construction, Mainella noted in his 2023 decision.
- Danny Gunn, Katz’s legal counsel, has urged the public not to draw any conclusions about Katz until the inquiry does its work.
Inquiry counsel begins questioning
Inquiry counsel Heather Leonoff begins by asking Katz about major projects that were completed when he was mayor.
She quickly moves to the police HQ project and then asks Katz about his relationship with Sheegl and their co-investment in land in Tartesso, Ariz.
Katz says he and Sheegl were co-investors in three properties.
Leonoff also asks about Katz's former shell company, Duddy Enterprises, which the former mayor once traded back and forth with Sheegl.
Former Winnipeg mayor Sam Katz in the hearing room on Thursday, ahead of his expected testimony into the Winnipeg Police Service headquarters project. (Rudi Pawlychyn/CBC)
Sam Katz is in the hearing room. He smiled as he walked in and took a minute to say hello to reporters.
His voice is a little more gruff than when he was mayor and his hair is a little more white. But he still has a sense of humour. When Steve Lambert from The Canadian Press asked Katz if he will speak to reporters during a break, the former mayor said he is always up for a good scrum.
In February 2008, the Winnipeg Police Service confirmed it was looking at moving into a former Canada Post warehouse and office tower complex south of Graham Avenue. City council approved the purchase of the buildings and a renovation project valued at a combined $135 million in 2009.
The cost of the project rose several times until it was officially listed at $209 million. Post-construction work took the tab up to $214 million.
Cost overruns are only one issue.
The project has also been the subject of a 2014 project audit that found the construction contract was awarded to a company that did not submit a proposal for the work and a 2014 real estate audit that found the city did not look at any other place to house the new police HQ.
A five-year RCMP investigation into fraud, forgery and secret commissions concluded in 2019 without charges.
Then came two civil lawsuits from the city. One against contractor Caspian Construction was settled for a maximum of $28 million. The second, against former CAO Sheegl, resulted in the Court of King’s Bench’s determination Sheegl accepted a bribe from Babakhanians of Caspian.
Former mayor Sam Katz set to testify
Good morning. I’m Bartley Kives, a reporter with CBC News in Winnipeg. I've been covering the police headquarters story since 2006, when the City of Winnipeg determined the cost of putting new Tyndall stone cladding on the old Public Safety Building on Princess Street was estimated at about $19 million, which was enough to consider building a new home for the Winnipeg Police Service.
Twenty years later, this story is still going — and it’s no longer about stone cladding.
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