A Public Inquiry into what happened at the Crocus Fund is needed

Day after day in the legislature, my colleague, Kevin Lamoureux, stands up to read a petition calling for a public inquiry into what went wrong at the Crocus Investment Fund. In the provincial Liberal Party, we have taken the position for some time now that this public inquiry is needed.

On August 15 of this year in an Op-Ed piece for the Winnipeg Free Press I laid out our reasons: "The arguments against a Crocus inquiry follow the reasoning of a cover-up: if the truth is revealed it will make things worse, so we should sweep things under the rug....Cover-ups ensure that lessons are not learned but avoided. As a society we need our institutions to be open and truthful. We need to see what went wrong so that we can ensure it doesn't happen again. That's why Gary Doer must call a public inquiry into Crocus. ... Investors and Manitobans deserve the whole truth."

When I have talked with people recently in the Fort Whyte constituency where we have the by-election going on, I hear continued support and demand for a public inquiry. People want answers. 33,000 Manitobans invested in the Crocus Investment Fund in good faith, and they deserve answers. If Gary Doer has nothing to hide, he should welcome a public inquiry into Crocus. Why is he hesitating to call the public inquiry which we need and which is in the public interest?