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The CNIB building to go up in Wascana Park has been in the headlines for a little while now, with people arguing that it shouldn’t be going in the park.
Now the head of the company building the project, Brandt Industries, is speaking out.
Shaun Semple is the president of Brandt, and he’s now trying to counter some of the negative things being said about the project, and what he calls slander against his company and his family.
“What we’re disappointed in is that some of our leaders in the community have taken this opportune time to politicize it, to diminish all the good things that Brandt and, we believe, our family have done for the community to get their own personal and political gain,” Semple said.
Semple spoke on Gormley on Monday morning, and explained the project goes back to 2014 when the CNIB came to Brandt to talk about gathering donations.
He said the lease for $1 per year is between the CNIB and the provincial government. Brandt Industries has a lease with the CNIB, a deal that provides the CNIB with free rent and expenses while in the building that will be put up by Brandt. Semple said that’s worth about $10 million.
Semple maintains the project is included within the Wascana Centre Master Plan, though others have argued that it wasn’t approved as it’s planned now or that it wasn’t approved at all.
Last week, the Provincial Capital Commission, which is now in charge of Wascana Park, said it is going to essentially put a pause on the project until the Provincial Auditor’s report is finished and released in December. The report will include a look at the park and this project.
Semple said that decision was disappointing.
“It’s not just about us,” he said. “(People are) forgetting too that the CNIB, the MS Society, and others will benefit in millions of dollars in free rent that they would normally have to take from donors (and) that they couldn’t use that money to pay for their members’ benefits. That’s the real sad commentary in this whole program here.”