Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew did not violate provincial conflict of interest laws when he took planes chartered by the Winnipeg Blue Bombers to the Grey Cup in 2023 and 2024, the province’s ethics commissioner found Wednesday.
The ethics investigation came after a CBC article earlier this year raised questions about the trips, which were also offered to Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham. A spokesperson previously said the mayor declined and chose to fly commercial.
The same day the CBC’s story came out, Progressive Conservative MLA Greg Nesbitt (Riding Mountain) made a request for an ethics inquiry into the flights taken by Kinew, whose NDP was elected to form government in 2023.
Under Manitoba’s Conflict of Interest Act, members of the legislative assembly aren’t allowed to accept travel on a non-commercial chartered or private aircraft, unless they have the prior approval of the ethics commissioner, or the travel was required for the performance of their office and they file required information within 30 days, a Wednesday news release from the commissioner said.
Jeffrey Schnoor, Manitoba’s ethics commissioner, said in a report released Wednesday afternoon that “accepting travel” as described in the act involves travel that’s either free or at less than fair market value.
Because Kinew paid fair market value for the flights, he wasn’t required to get approval or file information about them after — meaning he didn’t breach the act, Schnoor said.
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Schnoor said Kinew phoned him shortly after the CBC article about his travel appeared, and told the commissioner his view was that the act didn’t apply because he’d paid for both flights.
“I told him that, in reading [that section] in the past, I had not contemplated a scenario in which a member had paid for their travel on a non-commercial chartered or private aircraft; I had viewed the section as intended to prohibit free junkets,” Schnoor wrote.
The commissioner said he advised Kinew to file disclosures on both flights “out of an abundance of caution,” and granted him an extension to do so since the premier was well past the 30-day deadline for disclosures — something Schnoor noted he’s done often for both government and Opposition, since the conflict of interest act for MLAs, which came into effect in October 2023, is still relatively new.
Schnoor’s report said Kinew paid $1,100 for his chartered 2023 flights to and from Hamilton, and $650 in 2024 for his chartered flight back from Vancouver, after flying there on a scheduled commercial flight.
The airfare was set by the Winnipeg Football Club (the non-profit corporation that operates the Bombers), and the same amount was charged to all invited guests, the report said.
“The common usage of the term ‘accept’ implies that something is being given to you, which was not the case. I did not consent to receive something, I acquired it. I did not accept a gift, I paid for a flight,” Kinew wrote in a response provided to the ethics commissioner.
“For your consideration, when someone rides in an Uber they paid fair market value for one would not say they ‘accepted’ an Uber. They would say they bought an Uber or ordered an Uber.”
Schnoor noted the section of the act governing air travel is complex, and offered guidance for other MLAs going forward.
A spokesperson for Kinew previously said the premier went “above and beyond all requirements” by paying the Bombers out of pocket for the trip to Hamilton in 2023.
Kinew took his wife and child, along with a special assistant, to watch the Bombers lose to the Montreal Alouettes in Hamilton on Nov. 19, 2023.
The expenses related to the 2023 game were released under freedom of information laws, following a September 2024 request by CBC for the premier and staff’s expenses from October 2023 onward.
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Although the records are supposed to be provided within 45 days under access to information legislation, it took more than 170 days — and a warning from the provincial ombudsman that the government was not in compliance with the legislation — before the government disclosed the documents.
That was followed by weeks of staffers providing inaccurate and contradictory information regarding the premier’s expenses, arguing the story wasn’t worth reporting.
Kinew also flew the charter to the Grey Cup in Vancouver with his family in 2024, when the Bombers lost to the Toronto Argonauts. For that trip, he did not expense his accommodations.
