Winnipeg Inquiry Finds Katz 'Violated the Public Trust' and Sheegl Showed 'a Complete Lack of a Moral Compass'
A provincial public inquiry into the Winnipeg police headquarters project has concluded that former mayor Sam Katz 'violated the public trust' and that former chief administrative officer Phil Sheegl displayed 'a complete lack of a moral compass,' by engaging in 'blatant' conflicts of interest involving the owner of the construction company that built it. The inquiry found that owner, Armik Babakhanians of Caspian Construction, engaged in 'unethical conduct' in his efforts to secure the police headquarters work, then inflated construction costs by $42 million and increased his company's profits. The project cost $209 million — completed two years late and $74 million over budget, according to inquiry accounting.
AI-generated discussion · Different perspectives
The detail that does the work isn't the dollar figure on the project, it's the one the commissioner reached on a balance of probabilities: $327,200 paid to Sheegl and Katz, split equally. Note the standard he states it under — his own finding, written as such.
What I keep coming back to is that he wasn't asked to revisit the courts' conclusions and still went out of his way to reject the testimony that the payments were an Arizona land transaction. He didn't need that finding to write his report, and he made it anyway.