Advertisement

Cabinet minister Ken Cheveldayoff has history of controversy around Winnipeg Jets tickets

Cabinet minister Ken Cheveldayoff has history of controversy around Winnipeg Jets tickets

This week wasn't the first time Saskatchewan cabinet minister Ken Cheveldayoff has been involved with questions around tickets to a Winnipeg Jets hockey game.

The latest kerfuffle involves a photo posted Tuesday on Twitter. It shows Cheveldayoff trying to unload two tickets before Game 5 of the Jets/Knights Western Conference playoff series.

The incident brings to mind a more consequential controversy Cheveldayoff found himself in the midst of in 2014. Now Chevaldayoff has changed his story about that incident, which came to be known as "Ticketgate."

'I was doing a friend a favour'

Earlier this week, people on Twitter were wondering why a cabinet minister, who also happens to be the brother of Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff, was flogging game tickets.

"I wasn't scalping them," Cheveldayoff explained in a phone interview. "I was just doing a friend a favour."

He said he bought the tickets for a friend on his own credit card and that they weren't provided by his brother. He said his friend cancelled at the last minute so he sold the tickets for "a little less than face value."

He said his brother has never given him free tickets to Jets games.

"I pay for every ticket with a credit card," Cheveldayoff said. "I pay for every ticket all the time."

He said he thinks it's "hilarious" that "people have nothing better to do than to worry about me selling a ticket to a hockey game."

Cheveldayoff caught up in Manitoba's 'Ticketgate'

Questions about tickets were also front and centre a few years back when a controversy arose surrounding Cheveldayoff and then-NDP Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger.

In Dec. 2011, the two politicians enjoyed a Jets game together in a luxury box owned by True North, the company that owns the Jets and the arena.

The following year, it was revealed that some Manitoba NDP cabinet ministers and Crown executives had received free tickets to Jets games.

Manitoba's opposition leader at the time asked Selinger if he had received any ticket he hadn't paid for personally and he replied, "No."

The controversy fired back up in November 2014, as Selinger was in the midst of an internal battle over his leadership and questions were raised about his possible connection to Ticketgate.

At that time, Global News asked Cheveldayoff who it was that paid for the Premier's ticket to that 2011 game.

"We each paid for our own ticket — he had his own ticket and paid for it himself," Cheveldayoff told Global News in a telephone interview.

But the next day in the legislature, Selinger offered a different story. He apologized for "inadvertently" misleading the legislature by failing to disclose that it was Cheveldayoff who in fact paid for that luxury box ticket.

"I offered to pay for the ticket directly but was refused, and instead I made a donation to a housing non-profit," he said in a Nov. 21, 2014 members statement. He said the donation was for $300.

Cheveldayoff's changing story

CBC contacted Cheveldayoff on Wednesday to ask about who really purchased those tickets.

Cheveldayoff acknowledged, "I actually paid for both of them and [Selinger] said that he'd pay me back."

He said because it was a luxury box, he made a donation to True North's charitable foundation in lieu of the price of the tickets. CBC asked if he has a charitable receipt for that donation but he said he didn't ask for one and he doesn't remember the amount he paid.

CBC asked why he didn't tell the Global News reporter that he bought Selinger's ticket himself. He explained that he and Selinger had an understanding that the then-Premier would pick up the bill for the next game.

"Politicians are people first. I took a friend to a game and instead of him paying me he said he'd take me later on," explained Cheveldayoff. "Technically did he pay for his ticket? No he didn't. But he gave me the undertaking that he would pay for it."

When asked if he and Selinger ever did go to another game together he said no.

Cheveldayoff says "it's kinda ridiculous" that CBC is asking questions about this story.

"It's seven years old," said Cheveldayoff.