Municipal officials were excited when Carpere Canada agreed to purchase land in the Southeast Industrial Park last April, but 11 months later, that joy turned to disappointment after the company pulled out of the deal, documents show.
Based on city hall emails that the Moose Jaw Express obtained through a freedom of information (FOI) request, the newspaper explores the business relationship between Carpere Canada and the City of Moose Jaw in a three-part series.
This is part three of three. Part one is here and part two is here.
‘We have an agreement!’
Jim Dixon, economic development manager, issued several emails from Dec. 3 to 6 to members of city administration in preparation for the Dec. 6 meeting. City hall had to adjust the schedule since Terry Tian, director of business development for Carpere Canada, and his group were unable to tour the Tunnels or have lunch with municipal officials.
Internally, Dixon had a welcome poster created for the meeting. (Municipal officials removed that poster as part of the redactions). He also prepared a background document about Carpere and discussion points that the municipality wanted to communicate.
A day after the meeting between Carpere Canada officials and municipal officials, Dixon issued an excited email.
“We have an agreement!” he wrote.
Carpere had accepted the development levies and the sale price of $10,000 per acre for the roughly 900 acres — actually 780 acres — in the industrial park. The company would lead the servicing of land — “another yippie!” he wrote — while Katelyn Soltys, assistant city solicitor, would draft a letter of intent.
“They agree to all items Katelyn represented from the city’s perspective. What a great day for our city!” he added.
Carpere’s connection to Communist China
Dixon and Michelle Sanson, director of planning and development, created a confidential eight-page report that focused on the offer to purchase land for industrial development, which they presented to executive committee on Dec. 10, 2018.
The entire report was redacted in the FOI package.
Dixon and Sanson produced another report on Jan. 21, 2019 for executive committee on the same topic, but again, that 12-page document was entirely blank. However, the actual offer to purchase agreement was attached, and it showed that Morris Chen — a very wealthy Vancouver businessman with connections to the Communist Chinese government, according to the Globe and Mail — and Yiming Luo signed on behalf of Carpere Canada.
The offer to purchase was dated for March 26, 2019.
City administration presented to city council on April 30, 2019 the final offer to purchase land for industrial development agreement with Carpere Canada. The mayor heralded this as the largest land deal in Moose Jaw’s history. Carpere would pay $7.8 million for the 780 acres and develop the industrial park to attract businesses.
However, the situation wasn’t all roses, as Carpere Canada approached city hall six months later and asked for a payment extension.
The end of the beginning
City administration created a report for a special executive committee on Oct. 22, 2019 about Carpere’s request; full payment was due at the end of the month. However, city hall redacted the four-page document and removed the reason why Carpere asked for more time to pay.
Another confidential report came to executive committee on Jan. 29, 2020, but again, municipal officials removed all relevant information from the five-page document. City administration issued an eight-page confidential report for council’s Feb. 12 executive committee about Carpere’s requests for amendments to the agreement. Again, that document is void of information.
City administration produced one more confidential report for executive committee on Feb. 24 with an update about the land sale. That document is similarly empty of content. However, this is when council learned that Carpere decided to abandon the deal.
Less than a month later, on March 3, the deal officially collapsed. City hall issued a news release saying Carpere Canada had decided that after “extensive due diligence,” it would not move forward with the agreement or purchase lands in Moose Jaw’s Southeast Industrial Park (SEIP).
On its website, Carpere said it had planned to attract billions of dollars worth of agri-food processing, technology firms, and similar companies to Moose Jaw. It also planned to construct a large residential water garden development.
Those plans, as of now, are dead in the water.
Lack of emails
It’s interesting to note that, in the FOI package, from the time Carpere agreed to sign the agreement on April 30, 2019 to when it abandoned the agreement in March 2020, there is not a single email from anyone at city hall about this collapse. Did city administration simply communicate verbally with each other on this? Did they write out their letters to each other?
It’s difficult to believe that city administration did not produce any emails in a panic as they attempted to keep this lucrative deal from collapsing.
So, besides the proposed pea plant, attracting Syncrude Energy, opening a distillery, and working with Canadian Tire, the deal with Carpere Canada is another failed attempt by city council to create economic opportunity in Moose Jaw.
And the beat goes on.
