Premier's wife declines $100K tourism grant after criticism in P.E.I. Legislature

Jana Hemphill, who is married to P.E.I. Premier Dennis King, has decided to decline a $100,000 tourism grant from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency after the Opposition Greens made political hay of the announcement in the legislature Tuesday.

Hemphill's business, Storybook Adventures and Nature Retreat Inc., received a non-repayable loan of $100,000 from ACOA last week, one of 13 projects the federal agency funded in central P.E.I. out of the Liberal federal government's Tourism Relief Fund, launched to help that sector adapt after two years of COVID-19 disruptions. 

"While my ACOA application went through all the appropriate channels (including being sent to an out-of-province ACOA office for consideration), I clearly didn't anticipate the backlash that would follow," Hemphill said in a message to CBC News late Tuesday.

"I've been in business a long time, and I guess I naively believed I could separate my company from my personal life. In truth it seems my identity as 'wife' now trumps my role as entrepreneur — something I haven't yet become accustomed to."

'Islanders expressed their concern'

During question period in the legislature Tuesday, the Opposition Green Party asked King pointed questions about the grant.

"Islanders are experiencing an unprecedented rise in the cost of living, and yet still they haven't received that $150 cheque that was promised to them by [the provincial] government six weeks ago," Opposition Leader Peter Bevan-Baker said. 

"Those Islanders are being forced to tighten their belts while at the same time the premier's wife gets a $100,000 grant. Islanders are, I believe, understandably upset."

He pointed to social media as he said: "There was quite an outcry over the weekend over this when it became known.… Hundreds if not thousands of Islanders expressed their concern."

King, a Progressive Conservative, said the business is entirely owned by his wife of 23 years.

"She is a strong, independent entrepreneur, a woman who knows what she wants and she's been working passionately at it her whole life," he said. "She is very capable of doing things on her own." 

Grant was for riding facilities

The company's website describes it as "a high-performance equestrian facility … set on 24 rolling acres in beautiful Brookfield, Prince Edward Island."

It's also home to "goats, sheep, a pig named Fern, several pot-bellied pigs, hens, roosters, ducks, rabbits, a llama, cow, donkey and more… providing a space that allows people to disconnect from the hectic pace of daily life and reconnect with animals and nature."

The premier told the legislature he had nothing to do with Hemphill's application for funding, which ACOA said would allow the business to "upgrade its equestrian facilities to increase indoor riding capacity to attract additional off-island visitation."

I think it's rather disappointing and really sickening to suggest that I had anything to do with this.— Premier Dennis King

"I can understand if people thought that I gave money to her, where they would be upset," King said. 

"I think it's rather disappointing and really sickening to suggest that I had anything to do with this," he added, saying he found the tone of Bevan-Baker's questions "misogynistic," by implying King's wife would need him to do anything for her. 

When the Green Party leader tried to move on to another topic, proceedings in the legislature stopped for almost a full minute while the premier and Environment Minister Steven Myers heckled him.

The words "chicken," "phoney" and "unbelievably gutless" could be heard as they challenged him to ask more questions on the ACOA funding when he tried to start asking a question about people without access to a family doctor.

Conflict of interest watchdog consulted

King later said he spoke to P.E.I.'s conflict of interest commissioner after learning Hemphill had applied for the loan, shortly before it was announced.

He said the commissioner told him that because it's federal money and the business is in his wife's name, it doesn't have to go on his public interest disclosure statement.

King said he was told the issue would have to be reconsidered if there's a benefit to the premier himself down the road.