Richard Nixon

Tuesday September 29, 2015

By Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator - Tuesday September 29, 2015 Furor over Sudbury bribery scandal continues Ontario's New Democrats demanded Premier Kathleen Wynne "come clean" Friday about her role -- if any -- in the Sudbury byelection scandal that led to criminal charges against a senior Liberal operative. OPP charged prominent Sudbury Liberal Gerry Lougheed on Thursday after an investigation into allegations he offered former candidate Andrew Olivier a job to step aside for a Feb. 5 byelection. Wynne refused to answer when asked directly who had instructed Lougheed to make the job offer, insisting she couldn't comment because the case is now before the courts. All the premier has to do is say "No," said NDP house Leader Gilles Bisson. "If she didn't do it she should at least say so," he said. "And I don't see the courts as having anything to do with her ability to be able to deny that in fact she had anything to do with it." The Progressive Conservatives said they too want to know if Wynne ordered Lougheed to offer Olivier an incentive to step aside, and called on the premier to step down until the charges are dealt with. Wynne maintains the Liberals were just trying to keep Olivier in the party fold, and there was no need to offer him anything to step aside because she had already decided he would not be the byelection candidate. Wynne had convinced federal New Democrat MP Glenn Thibeault to be the Liberal candidate in the byelection, and Lougheed said the premier wanted Olivier to step down and agree to nominate his replacement. Olivier released recordings of his conversations with Lougheed and with Wynne's deputy chief of staff, Pat Sorbara, but he did not record his conversation with the premier. "I come to you on behalf of the premier," Lougheed said. "The premier wants to talk to you. They would like to present to you options in terms of appointments, jobs or whatever that you and her and Pat Sorbara can talk about."

By Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday September 29, 2015

Furor over Sudbury bribery scandal continues

Ontario’s New Democrats demanded Premier Kathleen Wynne “come clean” Friday about her role — if any — in the Sudbury byelection scandal that led to criminal charges against a senior Liberal operative.

OPP charged prominent Sudbury Liberal Gerry Lougheed on Thursday after an investigation into allegations he offered former candidate Andrew Olivier a job to step aside for a Feb. 5 byelection.

Wynne refused to answer when asked directly who had instructed Lougheed to make the job offer, insisting she couldn’t comment because the case is now before the courts.

All the premier has to do is say “No,” said NDP house Leader Gilles Bisson.

“If she didn’t do it she should at least say so,” he said. “And I don’t see the courts as having anything to do with her ability to be able to deny that in fact she had anything to do with it.”

The Progressive Conservatives said they too want to know if Wynne ordered Lougheed to offer Olivier an incentive to step aside, and called on the premier to step down until the charges are dealt with.

Wynne maintains the Liberals were just trying to keep Olivier in the party fold, and there was no need to offer him anything to step aside because she had already decided he would not be the byelection candidate.

Wynne had convinced federal New Democrat MP Glenn Thibeault to be the Liberal candidate in the byelection, and Lougheed said the premier wanted Olivier to step down and agree to nominate his replacement.

Olivier released recordings of his conversations with Lougheed and with Wynne’s deputy chief of staff, Pat Sorbara, but he did not record his conversation with the premier.

“I come to you on behalf of the premier,” Lougheed said. “The premier wants to talk to you. They would like to present to you options in terms of appointments, jobs or whatever that you and her and Pat Sorbara can talk about.”

The recording is pretty damning, said Bisson.

“It is clear somebody in the premier’s office said: ‘go and offer Mr. Olivier a bribe not to run in the provincial byelection.’ The tapes are clear,” he said. “The premier has a responsibility to the people of Ontario to say I did or I did not order this particular thing to happen.” (Source: Toronto Sun)

 

Wednesday June 26, 2013

Wednesday June 26, 2013By 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)