Another Saskatchewan Party government conflict of interest investigation spells problems for Education Minister Jeremy Cockrill.
There are few problems bigger for a candidate and a governing political party six days before an election call than to be hammered by another serious and unproven conflict-of-interest allegation.
Of course, there’s ample reason to be suspicious of the NDP’s timing in bringing this to light.
The Opposition first noticed last spring that Cockrill’s 2022 conflict-of-interest disclosures included personal investments in Helium Evolution and Royal Helium.
Obviously, this little bombshell was detonated to create as much collateral damage as possible … which political parties are apt to do. (Remember the eve of the 2007 election, when the then-Sask. Party Opposition disclosed information it had for years on the NDP government caucus covering up a police investigation into an employee theft scandal?)
Further, it’s still just an investigation by Conflict of Interest Commissioner Maurice Herauf, and a rather convoluted one at that … although allegations must meet a certain bar before the COIC will even investigate.
Well, another one has met that bar.
“I have determined there were reasonable and probable grounds to proceed as directed by ss. 29(1) and 30(1)(a) of the (The Members’ Conflict of Interest) Act,” Herauf said in an email response to Leader-Post legislative reporter Alec Salloum on Wednesday morning.
It’s all rather telling, but it may not be telling the same story NDP ethics and democracy critic Meara Conway was telling Wednesday morning: “Scott Moe and the Old Boys club aren’t working for the people of Saskatchewan. They are in it for themselves,” she said.
About two hours after Conway’s press conference, the government and Cockrill released a statement declaring: “I am confident that I acted appropriately.”
Cockrill also released a portion of his own correspondence with Herauf that Conway didn’t initially release, in which the COIC head said he agreed “the Opinion Request does not identify any meeting or decision at which Mr. Cockrill allegedly failed to disclose a conflict of interest or withdraw from the meeting” and that the “2021 Helium Action Plan cannot give rise to a conflict of interest” because it “would not raise reasonable and probable grounds.”
Moreover, Cockrill was not in cabinet in 2021 and “did not own any interest in Helium Evolution or Royal Helium at that time.”
Cockrill then declared this was nothing but NDP “mudslinging,” noting there was no review of “insider trading” as Conway seemed to imply.
However, the education minister did acknowledge he was again under COIC investigation — which neither he nor the Sask. Party government bothered to tell the public about.
Wouldn’t it be a wee bit of problem that he now faces two COIC investigations and still sits at the cabinet table? Or are we just supposed to accept a cavalier explanation that, as Cockrill himself is apt to to say, it could have been worse?
Actually, it still might be worse.
Upon Cockrill releasing his own favourable, selective passages from Herauf’s letter, the NDP later released more of the COIC’s letter that went on to say “the 2021 Helium Action Plan contemplates ongoing actions through to 2030.” The letter also offered credence to Conway’s concerns that Helium Evolution’s 2023 financial statements show “an amount expected to be returned by the Government of Saskatchewan due to overpayment.”
Yes, Conway and the NDP raising all this on the eve of an election is highly suspicious. But the who-knew-what-when problem is much bigger for Cockrill than it is for them.
And now this latest conflict.
Regardless of how it came to light, it’s a big problem for Cockrill and the Sask. Party.
Mandryk is the political columnist for the Regina Leader-Post and the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.
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