4 takeaways from the 1st week of the Winnipeg police headquarters inquiry

During the first four days of what will eventually be a 48-day public inquiry into the construction of Winnipeg's police headquarters, commissioner Garth Smorang heard testimony from a former mayor, the vice-president of one of Canada's construction companies, a contracts law expert and a pair of senior city officials.

It's fair to say no major revelations emerged from these initial hearings. This is not criticism.

After two city-commissioned audits, a five-year RCMP investigation that unearthed thousands of documents and two civil lawsuits that made even more information public, new facts are more likely to emerge from this inquiry in an incremental rather than explosive manner.

Nonetheless, here are four things we can glean from the first week of the inquiry:

Questions have lingered for years around the construction of the downtown headquarters, which opened three years late in 2016 at a cost that ballooned to $214 million due to construction delays, change orders and flood damage.

One of the enduring mysteries of the police headquarters saga was the city's laser focus on pursuing downtown Winnipeg's Canada Post complex at the expense of any other prospective new home for the Winnipeg Police Service.

The police headquarters inquiry did not wrestle with this question during its first week. It's unclear whether it will over the course of the remaining 44 days of hearings.

Winnipeg Police Service officials first acknowledged they were looking at Canada Post's office tower and warehouse complex at 266 Graham Ave. in February 2008.

According to the 2014 review of City of Winnipeg real estate transactions, conducted by consulting firm EY, former Winnipeg property and planning director Phil Sheegl — who would later become CAO — started lobbying Canada Post to grant the city the exclusive right to purchase the federal Crown corporation's buildings in October 2008.

This was more than a year before city council approved a deal to purchase the property for $29.25 million.

The auditors at EY could not find any evidence the city looked at any other option for a new police headquarters other than buying the Canada Post complex and renovating it.

An analysis assessed whether 266 Graham could accommodate the police headquarters, but the consulting firm "did not observe file documentation evidencing that other properties other than 266 Graham were considered as potential locations," EY wrote in its 2014 report.

It also said the city "did not advertise the need for such property ... in order to identify the options available."

While the city did not advertise a need for other locations for a new police headquarters, officials did run the numbers on other options, including building a new police headquarters, as well as renovating the existing Public Safety Building on Princess Street and expanding it over the footprint of the old Civic Centre Parkade.