Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne makes an announcement during a press conference at Queen's Park in Toronto on Jan. 6, 201Frank Gu
Kathleen Wynne is rejecting mounting calls for one of her top aides to step aside amid a criminal corruption investigation.
On the first day of the new legislative session, the Ontario Premier defended deputy chief of staff Patricia Sorbara, who is facing police accusations she offered former candidate Andrew Olivier a government job in exchange for him pulling out of the recent Sudbury by-election race.
Ms. Wynne contended Ms. Sorbara had been acting in her capacity as a party operative, not a government employee, in her talk with Mr. Olivier.
"The role that Pat Sorbara plays as a director of campaigns is quite separate from her role as deputy chief of staff," the Premier told reporters Tuesday morning.
Ms. Wynne further argued that Ms. Sorbara's discussion with Mr. Olivier – in which she dangled several possible jobs – was not a bribery attempt but merely an effort to see what sort of government opportunities he might be interested in.
"That's exactly a conversation that I hope, quite frankly, any leader would have with a failed candidate," she said. The Premier also confirmed she will be interviewed by Ontario Provincial Police as part of the investigation.
Later in the day, the legislative committee probing the $1-billion cancellations of two gas-fired power plants tabled its report into the matter, which has ballooned into a scandal over the destruction of documents. Former premier Dalton McGuinty's chief of staff, David Livingston, is under police investigation for allegedly hiring an outside IT expert to wipe clean the hard drives on government computers, erasing e-mails and other records related to the gas plants.
New Democratic MPP Jagmeet Singh said Ms. Wynne is "following in the same footsteps" as Mr. McGuinty and "covering up" for staffers.
"What we're seeing is what's driving people away from voting. This is what's fuelling cynicism," Mr. Singh said. "The public has no trust in the government."
No one has been charged in either case, and the allegations have not been tested in court.
But they are threatening to overshadow the four-month session, even as the Premier tries to make headway on an ambitious legislative agenda.
The government is vowing to slash $3.6-billion from the deficit in the spring budget – a feat that will require further spending cuts and holding the line in negotiations with government unions. The Liberals are also pushing forward with legislation to set up the Ontario Retirement Pension Plan, promising to unveil a price on carbon emissions and pleging to reform The Beer Store's private monopoly arrangement with the province.
All of this, however, barely seemed to register in the legislature Tuesday, where the government was repeatedly grilled over ethics scandals.
The official report into the gas plants, written by the Liberal majority on the committee, conceded the cancellation cost was "unacceptably high," but said little about the alleged destruction of records, finding only that there were "some inadequacies" in government "document retention."
Dissenting reports from the opposition parties were far more pointed, accusing the government of a "cover-up" in erasing e-mails and withholding documents related to the gas plants.
"The Liberals have tried to stall, delay and thwart us at every turn in our bid to get to the truth," the Progressive Conservatives' minority report read.
On Tuesday, as Ms. Wynne faced volleys in Question Period from the opposition, she tried to play down the Sudbury controversy. She argued that Liberal candidate Glenn Thibeault's victory in the by-election offered some measure of vindication for her government.
"The people of Sudbury had all this information when they went to the polls. They made a decision. They have sent Glenn Thibeault to Queen's Park and I think we need to respect the honour and the decision of the people of Sudbury," she said in the legislature.
Mr. Thibeault, a former federal NDP MP who defected to run for the Liberals, had to endure New Democratic MPPs heckling him as a "traitor" during his first day in the assembly. He tried to shrug it off afterward.
"You know what?" he said. "A win is a win is a win."
Adrian Morrow