A survey of Progressive Conservative MLAs has found only one who received any money from the controversial Provincial Nominee Program, says a former Tory cabinet minister.
'We live in a province where there's a lot of rumours.'— PC MLA Mike Currie
Mike Currie, now a member of the opposition, told CBC News Wednesday he was able to reach all but two MLAs and ask them personally if they had companies that had benefited from the program. Only one, optometrist Dave MacKenna, said he had taken part in the program. He is a shareholder in a company that received money through the initiative in 2006.
Currie was development minister in the Tory government at the time the program was created. The PNP is a federal initiative that allows provinces to nominate immigrants, who are given permanent residence in exchange for investing $200,000 in the province that nominated them, providing they pass certain health and security checks.
Currie said he felt it was important to be able to confront rumours about Tory involvement in the program.
"I'm sure that, being in this business, … somebody was going to ask the question," he said.
"I wanted to feel comfortable, because we live in a province where there's a lot of rumours, and I wanted to make sure that I did ask each and every one personally."
The program, which ran from 2001 to Sep. 2 of this year, has come under fire for the involvement of companies owned by MLAs. Citizenship and Immigration Canada, which oversees the program, had also expressed concern about the quality of the companies approved by the province to participate.
Currie said the issue of members of government applying for the money was never raised at caucus, but if anyone had asked him whether it was allowed, he would have said no because of how it would look.
Premier Robert Ghiz took a different approach, asking the conflict of interest commissioner to rule on the matter.
Ghiz said he hasn't asked the members of his caucus which of them received money from the program. Three Liberal MLAs have already told the CBC they benefited from the program, all since the Liberals came to power in May 2007.
Auditor General Colin Younker has announced he will be investigating the program, and Currie has encouraged him to look all the way back to its inception in 2001.
