By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday June 26, 2013
McGuinty comes out swinging at gas plant inquiry
Former premier Dalton McGuinty dismissed a government committee investigating the $585-million gas plants scandal as too “partisan” to have any value.
McGuinty went on to criticize his own recordkeeping law as too vague, and in response to the deletion of e-mails by his senior staff, suggested that most government conversations should be private.
McGuinty adopted a more aggressive tone Tuesday in the second of two appearances before the Standing Committee on Justice Policy which is investigating the cancellation of gas plants in Oakville and Mississauga.
“This is not a determined effort to pursue the truth. This committee is a partisan exercise, and I think we need to be honest about that,” McGuinty said. “If you go to the Oxford dictionary and look up ‘partisan,’ it defines it as ‘prejudiced in favour of a particular cause.’
“This committee, dominated as it is by the opposition, is prejudiced in favour of the defeat of a government, and that colours everything that they do,” he said.
Former Liberal finance minister Dwight Duncan has taken to tweeting that the committee is a “kangaroo court.”
McGuinty was brought back to committee to explain why his most senior political staff deleted all e-mails that might have shed light on the decision to cancel the gas plants, one cancellation announced during an election campaign.
The opposition say the Liberals axed the plants at a potential cost of up to $1 billion to save their political seats, and then tried to cover up the electronic trail. (Source: Sun News)