SASKATOON, Sask. — The Saskatchewan NDP continued to raise questions about Saskatchewan Party MLA Kevin Weedmark’s use of his privately owned newspaper following reports that money used to pay an employee’s wages through a federal journalism grant has been repaid.
Weedmark is the MLA for Moosomin-Montmarte and is the deputy government Whip and Legislative Secretary to the Minister of Health. He owns the weekly newspaper The World-Spectator that serves communities in eastern Saskatchewan, including Moosomin, Esterhazy, St. Lazare, and Redvers. He has already denied the allegations involving his newspaper interests and said that he personally paid for chartered flights that have been criticized.
Shadow Minister for Health Meara Conway said the repayment does not address a broader concern about the relationship between Weedmark’s responsibilities as an MLA and his newspaper ownership. She said she had submitted a 30-page letter to the Conflict of Interest Commissioner outlining concerns about the arrangement, including the use of newspaper resources during Weedmark’s political activities.
“Honestly, these private jet rides are just the tip of the iceberg,” Conway said, arguing that the flights drew attention to what she described as a wider set of potential conflicts involving public funding, journalism, and partisan political work.
According to Conway, a World-Spectator employee whose wages were subsidized through the federal Local Journalism Initiative had accompanied Weedmark on flights and other activities connected to his work as an MLA.
She questioned whether the employee’s duties were consistent with independent journalism, particularly when the work appeared to involve producing social media content for Weedmark rather than reporting for the newspaper.
“Why do you have a journalist following around generating social content for your social media?” Conway asked, questioning whether publicly supported journalism resources were being used to support the MLA’s political activities.
She also questioned public advertising expenditures involving The World-Spectator, adding that the newspaper had received more than $30,000 in public money through advertising and raised concerns about how the funding was arranged.
Conway also pointed to the newspaper’s political connections. She questioned whether public funds indirectly supported partisan activities, a concern that forms part of the broader complaint she said she submitted to the Conflict of Interest Commissioner.
She further criticized the reported repayment of the grant-funded wages and said that the development reinforced the need for answers about the original arrangement.
“I’m not at all surprised to learn that there were concerns that the arrangement was not appropriate. I’m not at all surprised to hear those wages have been paid back. This only reinforces why we have been demanding answers and transparency on the issue in the first place,” she said.
Despite the repayment, Conway said questions remain about whether Weedmark’s newspaper resources were used in ways that blurred the boundaries between his political responsibilities and private business interests, and how independent reporting could be maintained under those circumstances.
She called for further scrutiny of the circumstances surrounding the newspaper’s funding, the employee’s duties and the use of public resources. She said she awaits the Conflict of Interest Commissioner’s findings and called for suspending an advertising exemption that, she said, allowed the government to spend public money with The World-Spectator.
