November 26, 1998
Commissioner finds that Morin committed seven violations
Conflict of Interest commissioner Anne Crawford says that Premier Don Morin failed to separate his private interests from his duties towards the people of the Northwest Territories.
Read Anne Crawford's report for yourself: The Conflict of Interest Commissioner's Report
DWANE WILKIN and JIM BELL
Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT — In a scalding assessment of his miscarriage of the public trust, Conflict of Interest commissioner Anne Crawford says Premier Don Morin willfully failed to separate his private interests from his duties to the people of the Northwest Territories.
The report upholds resoundingly a complaint against Morin that was initially launched by Hay River MLA Jane Groenewegen last February 16.
The 150-page report concludes that Morin repeatedly violated the spirit and intent of the conflict of interest section in the Legislative Assembly and Executive Council Act and that he sullied the reputation of the office of the premier.
Crawford concluded that Morin did indeed violated the Act by obtaining a private benefit as a result of his relationships with businessmen Mike Mrdjenovich and Roland Bailey.
At a time when most other GNWT property leases were frozen, the Department of Public Works signed an eight-year-long lease renewal for the Lahm Ridge Tower in September, 1997 — a day before the building was sold to a numbered company owned by Mrdjenovich and Bailey.
And she chastised the premier for obscuring the true nature of his dealings before the inquiry.
"When Mr. Morin's friends — and I use that label advisedly — obtained, under the most extraordinary circumstances, a hugely profitable office lease, which no one else had been able to get, Mr. Morin used his office and authority to tell everyone that the deal was fair and that those who complained were just whiners and snivellers. Mr. Morin was not believable because his own position was already compromised by accepting favours and benefits."
Six other instances of Morin's breach of the conflict of interest guidelines were examined and identified in the report.
On Wednesday afternoon, Morin's lawyers made a last-ditch attempt to prevent commission counsel Robert Dunseith from presenting Crawford's report to Speaker Sam Gargan.
They argued that Crawford was biased towards Morin and that she violated principles of natural justice by not giving him a copy of the report before it was tabled in the legislature.
They also said the report contains statements that could cause "irreparable damage" to Morin's reputation.
"We were all shocked and surprised at this last-minute attempt to block the report," Kivallivik MLA Kevin O'Brien said afterward.
In the end, Justice John Vertes ruled that Morin's eleventh-hour attempt to block public distribution of Crawford's report was an attempt to circumvent the legislature.
"I have grave misgivings about the report and the process from which it developed," Morin said in a prepared statement to reporters following the tabling of the report, "but I will adopt the advice given by Mr. Justice Vertes in court today and voice those misgivings on the floor of the legislature when the report is considered."
Gargan tabled one copy of the report in the Assembly. MLAs then recessed for a few hours to give staff time to print more copies of the report for distribution to MLAs and the public.
Interviewed Wednesday evening before he had a chance to read it, O'Brien said that MLAs will carefully consider the 150-page document before deciding what to do with it.
"If it turns out there was wrongdoing, then I think that the members must take the commissioner's recommendations very seriously," O'Brien said.
Crawford also took pains to castigate the premier for systematically attacking Groenewegen throughout the hearings.
"The record in these proceedings shows that from start to finish Mr. Morin has tried to use this Inquiry as a means to attack Mrs. Groenewegen, the complainant. He has not focused on his own office and conduct," Crawford wrote.
Crawford further recommended that Morin be ordered to pay Groenewegen's legal costs, and used the report to issue a condemnation of the existing system for funding complainants' legal expenses.
"I would still be prepared to recommend paying Mrs. Groenewegen's legal fees to the Management Services Board, if they were prepared to consider the matter again. But in the absence of that decision or support, it is not Mrs. Groenewegen who should be paying for the costs of bringing this complaint forward."
The commissioner gave a clean bill of health to the NWT's conflict of interest legislation, despite the egregious breach of its principles by the premier.
"The Act is clear," Crawford wrote. "The basic principles are: full disclosure — so that conflicts are easy to identify; notice — so that the attention of others is drawn to your conflict and withdrawal — so that you don't become involved in advancing your own interests when you should be serving others.
"It is not the Act which needs changing here, it is the conduct of the Premier."