The fourth phase of the Winnipeg police headquarters inquiry involves recommendations for changes to the way the City of Winnipeg manages major construction projects. (CBC – image credit)
The provincial public inquiry into Winnipeg’s police headquarters has entered into its final series of public hearings.
On Tuesday, the inquiry began hearing recommendations for changes to the way the City of Winnipeg manages major construction projects.
On Tuesday morning, Daniel Kazado of Winnipeg’s ProCS Professional Construction Solutions told the inquiry construction projects could benefit from a three-dimensional imaging process called building information modelling.
Kazado said Canada is one of the only developed countries that does not require the construction industry to employ three-dimensional modelling.
Former City of Winnipeg integrity commissioner Sherri Walsh is slated to address the inquiry on Tuesday afternoon.
Three earlier phases of the inquiry looked at the origins of the project, invoices issued during the construction phase and City of Winnipeg policies governing major projects, respectively.
The inquiry was originally slated to involve 48 days of public hearings held over five months. It is now expected to involve 31 days of hearings held over four months.
Inquiry commissioner Garth Smorang said in April the number of hearings was scaled back to allow the inquiry to remain within its $2.3-million budget.
The police headquarters project, which was planned and built between 2008 and 2016, involved the $214-million purchase and renovation of a former Canada Post warehouse and office tower complex in downtown Winnipeg.
The headquarters was completed two years late and $79 million over its city council-approved budget. It was also the subject of two city-commissioned audits and a five-year RCMP investigation into allegations of fraud, forgery and secret commissions that concluded without charges.
The City of Winnipeg also launched a pair of civil lawsuits over the project.
The first of those suits concluded in 2022, when a Manitoba judge determined former Winnipeg chief administrative officer Phil Sheegl accepted a $327,200 bribe from Armik Babakhanians, the owner of police-HQ contractor Caspian Construction, in exchange for favouring Caspian in the tendering process.
Caspian and other defendants settled a separate lawsuit in 2023 for $28 million.