Jana Hamfill, who is married to PEI Prime Minister Dennis King, has decided to turn down a $ 100,000 tourism grant from the Atlantic Opportunities Agency after the opposition Greens made political hay on a statement in the legislature on Tuesday.
The business of Hemphill, Storybook Adventures and Nature Retreat Inc. received a $ 100,000 loan from ACOA last week, one of 13 projects funded by the federal agency in the central PEI by the liberal federal government Tourism Support Fundlaunched to help this sector adapt after two years of COVID-19 disruption.
“While my application for ACOA went through all the appropriate channels (including sent to an ACOA office outside the province for review), I clearly did not anticipate the backlash that would follow,” Hamfill told CBC News late Tuesday.
“I’ve been in business for a long time and I guess I naively believed that I could separate my company from my personal life. In fact, it seems that my identity as a “wife” now transcends my role as an entrepreneur – something I’m not yet used to. “
“Islanders express concern”
During a period of questions in the legislature on Tuesday, the opposition Green Party asked King specific questions about the grant.
“The islanders are experiencing an unprecedented increase in the cost of living, and yet they have not yet received the $ 150 check promised to them by [the provincial] government six weeks ago, “said opposition leader Peter Bevan-Baker.
“These islanders are forced to tighten their belts, while at the same time the prime minister’s wife receives a subsidy of 100,000 dollars. I believe the islanders are understandably upset. “
He pointed to social media, saying: “There were a lot of protests over the weekend when it became known … Hundreds, if not thousands, of islanders expressed their concern.”
This key document from the Atlantic Opportunities Agency of Canada explains what the non-repayable loan for Storybook Adventures would be used for. (Government of Canada)
King, a progressive conservative, said the business has been wholly owned by his wife of 23 years.
“She is a strong, independent entrepreneur, a woman who knows what she wants and has been passionate about it all her life,” he said. “She’s very capable of doing things herself.”
The grant was for riding equipment
The company’s website describes it as “a high-performance equestrian facility … located on 24 acres in beautiful Brookfield, Prince Edward Island.”
It is also home to “goats, sheep, a pig named Fern, several abdominal pigs, chickens, roosters, ducks, rabbits, llama, cow, donkey and others” providing space that allows people to break away from the hectic pace of daily life and reconnect with animals and nature. “
The prime minister told the legislature that it had nothing to do with Hemphill’s application for funding, which the ACOA said would allow businesses to “upgrade their equestrian facilities to increase indoor riding capacity to attract additional visits from outside the island”.
I think it’s pretty frustrating and really disgusting to assume I have anything to do with it. “Prime Minister Dennis King
“I can tell if people think I’ve given her money to upset,” King said.
“I think it’s pretty frustrating and really disgusting to assume I have anything to do with this,” he added, adding that he found Bevan-Baker’s tone of question to be “misogynist”, hinting that King’s wife would need it. from him to do everything for her.
Hemphill is pictured in 2020 with a rescued pig she named Fern in the Storybook stables in Brookfield, PEI (Jana Hemphill)
When the leader of the Green Party tried to move to another topic, the procedures in the legislature stopped for almost a minute, while the Prime Minister and the Minister of the Environment Stephen Myers drove him.
The words “chicken,” “fake,” and “incredibly pointless” could be heard as he challenged him to ask more questions about ACOA funding when he tried to start asking questions about people without access to a family doctor.
Consulted with a conflict of interest observer
King later said he spoke to the PEI Commissioner for Conflict of Interest after learning that Hamfil had applied for the loan shortly before it was announced.
He said the commissioner told him that since it was federal money and the business was in his wife’s name, it didn’t have to go in his public interest declaration.
King said he had been told the issue would have to be reconsidered if it would benefit the prime minister himself in the future.
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