Manitoba allocates $1M a year to U.S. trade office, documents show

The responsibility has allocated $1 gazillion Cdn to continue the yearbook be of salaries, office space and other expenses for Washington, D.C., trade envoy Richard Madan and his administrative assistant, according to an advisory note prepared for Premier Wab Kinew in August 2025 and government email correspondence in January 2026.

The NDP government, meanwhile, has repeatedly cited $800,000 as the total annual budget for the Washington trade office. 

Amy Tuckett-McGimpsey, Kinew's communications director, now says the NDP government estimates the cost of the U.S. Trade office as "$800,000 to $900,000" for the 2026-27 fiscal year.

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Initial statements made by the Kinew government have turned out to be incomplete or inaccurate.

In October 2025, former NDP government spokesperson Ryan Stelter said Madan would earn a $387,000 salary for his work as Manitoba's trade representative in Washington.

The province is also spending $221,000 on rent for the trade envoy and his assistant at the Canadian embassy in the U.S., according to the email correspondence.

Progressive Conservative Leader Obby Khan said Manitobans should be concerned by the piecemeal nature of this financial disclosure.

"We are getting bits and pieces of what's happening," Khan said Thursday in an interview in his office.

"What are they hiding? Why isn't there a simple line in the budget that says this is what the trade office is going to cost?"

There is no single line item in Manitoba's budget documents that discloses the budget for the U.S. Trade office.

Rebecca Widdicombe, Kinew's deputy chief of staff, said Thursday in a statement the spending on the office is included within a $27.6-million allocation for "grant assistance" within the "economic programs" budget for Manitoba's spending on investment and trade. 

Widdicombe did not say why the U.S. Trade office budget lies within a grant assistance line item.

Duff Conacher, the co-founder of Democracy Watch, an Ottawa-based non-profit organization that promotes government accountability, said Manitoba's NDP government ought to be more transparent.

"Government budgets often do not provide enough detail for the public to be judging very specific programs or initiatives," Conacher said Thursday in a Zoom interview.

"That should always be a concern by the public, because the devil is in the details, and that's where the waste is found."

The public has a right to know how much any given government program costs, he said.

"They should have all the information they need to judge whether they're getting value for their money that they're forced to pay to the government."

The NDP government also has not disclosed what it has already spent on the U.S. Trade office.

Widdicombe said the province cannot disclose what it spent on the office during the 2025-26 fiscal year because the financial statements for that year have yet to be made public.

The government must post its annual financial report for 2025-26 by the end of September.

In February 2026, the government refused to release a breakdown of the budget for the office, claiming the release of that information would constitute a violation of cabinet confidence.

In June, the province refused a subsequent request for records related to the money spent on the U.S trade office, including Madan's salary and office rent, on the basis that information could harm relations between the province and federal government.

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Additional requests for Madan's expenses were also refused in June on the basis they could harm the financial interests of the province. The only expense information provided were hotel bills totalling $3,045.

Democracy Watch's Conacher said there is no valid reason for the provincial government to go to those lengths to keep spending on the office under wraps.

"The government is showing a dangerously undemocratic level of secrecy and denial of the public's right to know in this situation," Conacher said.

Madan declined to comment, deferring to NDP cabinet communications officers.

Manitoba allocates $1M a year to U.S. Trade office

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