Province rejects $1.7-M port claim

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This article was published 18/01/2017 (2665 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Manitoba government is attempting to derail the Hudson Bay Port Company’s lawsuit in its rebuttal to the Omnitrax-owned company’s claim the province owes it $1.7 million.

In a statement of defence filed Monday at the Court of the Queen’s Bench, the provincial government denies all claims by the Hudson Bay Port Company, which runs the Port of Churchill and the Hudson’s Bay Railway, that the government reneged on a promise by former premier Greg Selinger to cover the losses of both operations for the 2015 season.

The four-page statement goes on to accuse the company of publicly undertaking a “very aggressive and adversarial lobbying campaign” in its attempts to secure government subsidies for the 2016 shipping season prior to Omnitrax’s decision last July to close the Port of Churchill.

Company claims $1.7M owed

The lawsuit filed in December by the Hudson Bay Port Company says the company is owed $1.7 million in operating losses, plus damages, interest and costs for the losses incurred in 2015. It pointed to an agreement signed by the province and the company in July 2015 under the NDP government, which stated it would cover all operational losses.

The objective of the agreement was to ensure the Port of Churchill stayed open for the 2015 season.

The company claims the money for the losses never came, but the government outlines several reasons why it owes nothing more to the shipping and rail company, pointing to several areas in the agreement with which the company failed to comply. The government has already paid out more than $800,000 to the company in capital and tonnage support, the government states.

Firstly, the government says it is under no obligation to cover the losses of the Hudson’s Bay Railway — saying the agreement covers only the port. Secondly, the government points to the part of the agreement where the company was to make its claim for operating support by Feb. 1, 2016 — the claim wasn’t given to the province until April.

Lastly, it says the agreement outlined the establishment of a technical working group, made up of government and company members, to calculate the operating losses for the 2015 season. Instead, the claim alleges the company withdrew its representatives from participating in the group and submitted a claim for operating losses it had calculated on its own.

‘Aggressive and adversarial lobbying campaign’

“Rather than have its representatives participate on the (working group) to complete its functions for the 2015 shipping season, the plantiff publicly undertook a very aggressive and adversarial lobbying campaign in the hopes of, among other things, securing further public subsidy at the port of the 2016 shipping season,” it states. 

The point echoes comments made by Premier Brian Pallister in July. In direct response to the port’s closure, Pallister produced a copy of the agreement and condemned the NDP for the “subsidy” it had offered to keep the port operational. He warned the company he would not follow suit.

“We are not, as a government, interested in the business of subsidizing large corporations by using money taken from small businesses and individuals,” he said at a July news conference. 

Omnitrax Canada president Merv Tweed said he was unable to comment directly on the claims by the government, but said Omnitrax will be filing a response by the end of this week or the beginning of next week.

“I disagree with everything that has been stated within their claim, and we will be filing our response to it very quickly,” Tweed said in a brief phone interview with the Free Press. “And that is about all I am prepared to say.”

kristin.annable@freepress.mb.ca  

Twitter: @kristinannable