The Manitoba government is attempting to quell outrage among hockey fans after several executives at the province’s liquor control commission and three cabinet ministers received free tickets to Winnipeg Jets home games.

Internal government documents obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation reveal that board members, senior executives and managers at the Manitoba Liquor Control Commission received free tickets to each Winnipeg Jets home game as part of the agency’s $250,000-per-year sponsorship deal with True North Sports and Entertainment, the company that owns the Jets and the MTS Centre where the team plays.

The liquor commission received 10 free tickets for every sold-out home game, including pre-season, during the Jets’ inaugural season after a 15-year absence.

Of those, 188 were given to the agency’s head office managers and supervisors, 66 to board members and 62 to executives, the documents show. A further 108 tickets went to store managers, eight to the “MLCC Social Club” and four to the office of Healthy Living Minister Jim Rondeau, who is also responsible for the liquor commission.

Rondeau told the legislature he did not use the tickets, but could not speak for his political staff.

In an interview with the Star Tuesday, Finance Minister Stan Struthers said three cabinet ministers — Gord Mackintosh, Steve Ashton and Andrew Swan — attended Jets games last season using tickets given to them by Crown corporations. All three have since paid for the tickets out of their own pockets, he said.

“When there’s a hot commodity like a Winnipeg Jets ticket and there’s so much interest … people don’t want to be elbowed out of the way by somebody who is perceived (to have), or has, a real advantage in accessing those tickets,” Struthers said. “That’s not fair.”

To that end, the finance minister said the governing NDP is now working on a policy to prohibit cabinet ministers and board members of government agencies from receiving free hockey tickets.

“We want to make sure that Manitobans have access and that they’re treated fairly,” he said. “We understand that Crown corporations will be advertising, we understand that there are sponsorship opportunities. But the tickets they receive shouldn’t go to cabinet ministers and directors at the Crown corporations.”

Getting a ticket for the Jets in hockey-crazed Winnipeg is nearly impossible for regular fans. Every home game sold out last season, creating a healthy market for scalpers, who charge hundreds of dollars for a chance to see the much-missed team play. Fans hoping to buy tickets legitimately must enter a lottery.

Ron Schuler, sports critic for the opposition Progressive Conservatives, said all provincial MLAs have to declare gifts worth more than $250, meaning the tickets in question should have been flagged. He stressed that his party has no problem with politicians attending sports events on official business, but the puck stops there.

“If a minister goes for pure enjoyment, why is it the public’s responsibility to pay for that?” Schuler said. “Why should you have a right to elbow your way to the front of the line ahead of everybody else and get preferential treatment? Get in line like everybody else.”

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Taxpayers Federation spokesperson Colin Craig complimented the government for taking the issue seriously. But he questioned why Rondeau told the legislature Monday that the MLCC did not yet have details on who received free tickets, even though the information had already been sent to the federation.

“Now this is turning into a question of whether the minister misled the legislature,” said Craig. “Rondeau said that staff were busy pulling this information together when in fact it had already been sent to our office five weeks ago.”