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Opponents of a sand-extraction proposal near Winnipeg say the assessment of a new environmental licence for Sio Silica has been compromised by the mining company and the Manitoba government participating in the same U.S. trade mission.
Senior Manitoba bureaucrat Michael Jack and Sio Silica chief development officer Jack Winram travelled to Philadelphia in April as part of a Manitoba delegation to attend four days of a business conference organized by the World Trade Centers Association.
Representatives from three other Manitoba businesses as well as four business organizations took part in the delegation, which was assembled by World Trade Centre Winnipeg.
Jack, a former Winnipeg chief administrative officer, was appointed by the NDP government as Manitoba’s deputy minister of business, mining, trade and job creation in 2024.
A separate provincial ministry, Environment and Climate Change, is reviewing Sio Silica’s second application for a licence to extract thousands of tonnes of sand from below the surface of the rural municipality of Springfield, east of Winnipeg.
“The optics are really bad,” said Tangi Bell, who chairs Our Line in the Sand, a Springfield-based group that has opposed Sio Silica’s mining proposals for five years.
Bell claimed Jack’s participation in the Philadelphia trade trip with Winram compromises the assessment and licensing process underway. Businesses should not have access to senior government officials while their environmental licence applications are under review, she said.
Business, Mining, Trade and Job Creation Minister Jamie Moses declined an interview request but said in a statement no meetings took place between his government and Sio Silica in Philadelphia. (Bryce Hoye/CBC)
“Developers have a real cosy relationship with them, and they already have more access than ordinary people do,” Bell said in an interview Tuesday.
She suggested the province reform the Environment Act to prohibit such access.
Independent Manitoba MLA Bob Lagasse, whose Dawson Trail constituency includes the proposed Sio Silica mining site in Springfield, said it was not acceptable for Winram to be on the same trip as deputy minister Jack.
“If they’re going on the trip, are they then lobbying the government to do this project?” Lagasse asked in an interview in his office Wednesday.
Lagasse quit the Progressive Conservative party in March. He made the decision partly because of the party’s refusal to expel Jeff Wharton from caucus over the Red River North MLA’s role in the outgoing PC government’s effort to push through approval of Sio Silica’s initial licence application after the Tories lost the 2023 election.
“If I were currently part of this government, I would want to steer as far from this company until it went through the proper channels and before they made any kind of decision on it,” Lagasse said.
The NDP government declined requests by CBC News to speak to Environment and Climate Change Minister Mike Moyes or Business, Mining Trade and Job Creation Minister Jamie Moses.
The NDP government said in a prepared statement attributed to Moses that provincial staff members were asked to attend the conference by the World Trade Centre Winnipeg office.
“There were no organized meetings between government staff and the Sio Silica corporation during the conference,” Moses said.
In a separate statement Tuesday, Sio Silica chief development officer Winram said it was a privilege to take part in the Philadelphia delegation and praised the Winnipeg office for organizing the trip.
André Brin, the CEO of World Trade Centre Winnipeg, said Sio Silica showed interest in the conference and was not recruited.
The text of a LinkedIn post by Michael Jack, Manitoba’s deputy minister of business, mining, trade and job creation. (Michael Jack/LinkedIn)
Manitoba’s public service did not respond to a request to speak to Jack.
The deputy minister praised the World Trade Centre for organizing the trip in a post about the delegation on LinkedIn.
WATCH | ‘Optics are really bad,’ opponents of mining proposal say:
Mining opponents grit teeth over sand miner, province in same U.S. business delegation
Opponents of a proposed sand-extraction operation near Winnipeg say the assessment of a new environmental licence for Sio Silica has been compromised by the mining company and the province participating in the same trade mission.
“No matter where and with whom, Manitoba needs to keep telling its story everywhere, as loudly as it can,” Jack wrote.
Bell, the chair of Our Line in the Sand, said it does not matter that World Trade Centre Winnipeg organized the delegation to Philadelphia.
“Our elected officials and the public servants have to be the better people in all of this,” she said.
“I’m pretty sure they can approach WTC and say, ‘Look, we won’t be attending with any of these individuals [who] are actively pursuing a licence from us.'”
Premier Wab Kinew’s NDP government denied Sio Silica’s initial sand-mining licence application in 2024 over concerns about the potential effects on water quality and the geological stability of the sandstone aquifer below southeastern Manitoba.
Kinew said last year that Manitoba will hold a public inquiry into the former PC government’s post-election efforts to approve an environmental licence for Sio Silica.
He also said his NDP government will probably strengthen Manitoba’s lobbying rules in the wake of something that happened in 2023. Outgoing premier Heather Stefanson and two of her cabinet ministers made efforts to greenlight the mining proposal during the two-week caretaker period between their party’s election-night loss and Kinew’s swearing-in ceremony.
Manitoba’s ethics commissioner ruled in 2025 that Stefanson, former deputy premier Cliff Cullen and then-economic development minister Jeff Wharton acted improperly by pushing for the approval of the Sio Silica project after the 2023 election.