November 25, 2020
TREATY ONE TERRITORY, WINNIPEG, MB - Manitoba Liberals are questioning the Pallister PCs decision to hire a former PC Candidate, Michelle Richard, as Director of Municipal Relations with the Priorities and Planning Secretariat. As a consultant, Richard has a number of clients who have benefited, or stand to benefit from, rulings by the government.
Richard is a partner at consulting firm "Richard + Wintrup" and is involved in a number of major, and sometimes contentious, projects that require or received government approval in the past months.
Among the projects that have been, or are, under review by the province on which Richard + Wintrup were consultants include:
While Richard was hired at the province on September 9, her company's website still features her prominently as a partner and says she is only on a "temporary leave of absence." The company boasts that, "It is not bound by convention or structure," and "We will start with the concept of economic development and not land use regulation... Does the regulation line up? If not, is it feasible to change it?"
Manitoba Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont, MLA for St. Boniface said that aside from the potential for conflicts, Richard's hiring should raise red flags because of Bill 37, the PCs planned overhaul of Manitoba's development laws. The bill strips democratically elected officials and citizens of the right to have a say in how their communities grow, and hands it to the Minister instead.
"While thousands of Manitoba businesses have been pleading for help in this pandemic and getting nothing, businesses connected to PC consultants are getting tens of millions of dollars," said Lamont. "This would be bad enough, but the PCs are also planning to force through Bill 37, which has nothing to do with efficiency and everything to do with cutting corners to benefit Pallister's cronies."
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