Calls for abortive online gambling deal in Canada to be investigated

A failed million dollar deal last year between the Canadian provincial government of Port Edward Island and the First Nation Mi’kmaq Confederacy, with the goal of establishing an online gambling licensing jurisdiction, is to be investigated, according to local media reports.

The provincial government’s public accounts committee voted Thursday to ask the Auditor General to investigate the agreement, which has resulted in an alleged million dollar prejudice to the provincial government.

Questions surround a decision by Finance Minister Wes Sheridan to provide a million dollar loan to the Confederacy as seed money for the project. When the project failed, the Confederacy declined to return the money, saying it was only responsible for paying the money back once the plan started to generate revenue, which never happened (see previous reports).

Sheridan exacerbated the situation by declining to reveal the size of the loan, saying only that it was less than a million dollars.

Opposition leader Steven Myers, a member of the public accounts committee, said this week:

“It’s quite a tangled web the whole e-gaming thing. I’m not sure if we’ve ever gotten a straight answer from Wes Sheridan and I’m not sure if we ever will.

“But the truth is out there somewheres, and it’s high time that we start trying to dig in and find out what that truth is. There’s a million dollars that we know about for sure that’s gone.”

Auditor General Jane MacAdam is not bound by the committee’s request. Her office can also investigate any program without being asked.