Can the Ontario Liberals sink any lower?
The party is under investigation already by the Ontario Provincial Police over allegations that it destroyed files related to the cancellation of two gas plant projects during the 2011 provincial election. Two former aides to former premier Dalton McGuinty have been formally charged. Now the Ottawa Citizen is reporting that the OPP is launching a second investigation — into the alleged destruction of documents related to the cancellation of a wind farm project.
Trilllium Power Wind Corporation is suing the Ontario government for $500 million over its decision to cancel a proposed wind farm development on Lake Ontario, also around the time of the 2011 election. Company president John Kourtoff alleges that, during the discovery phase, emails and documents that should have existed were curiously absent, despite the fact that Trillium had received messages about the project from the premier’s office.
“Any communications from, to, or within the Ontario Premier’s office and cabinet office didn’t exist any more,” Kourtoff told the Globe and Mail. Even more damning, a document the government did disclose said the province would “purge e-mails, records, documents” related to offshore wind projects, according to Trillium’s court filings.
The government’s legal response was written in the true Orwellian style: “The use of the term ‘purging’ … refers to standard record keeping practices respecting transitory items and does not in any respect refer to the intentional destruction of documents that would in any way support the plaintiff’s unfounded allegations of misfeasance in public office.”
Read the full article on iPolitics here: The sins of the past are catching up to Premier Wynne