Misleading The Public

"The provision of inaccurate and incomplete information in my initial investigation is unprecedented during my (16 years) as commissioner. I am left with the inescapable conclusion that they did not take my investigation very seriously.
"I remain saddened at the failure of (ministry) staff to dedicate adequate resources to provide accurate and complete information to my office. As a direct consequence of the incomplete response, the public has been misled ... about the ability of staff to retrieve potential relevant information.
Information and Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian

But in fact, thanks to news reportage the public is and was aware that it was misled. The Liberal government's decision to save itself from re-election defeat by declaring at the very last minute that two planned gas plants would not proceed as a result of public backlash, even though one was already in the building stages, and with the knowledge that there would be a substantial financial penalty exacted by the principles involved, resulted in enough votes to bring the Liberals back to power.

The resulting furor over the penalties involved with a government that assured taxpayers that the penalty would result in no more than an economic slap on the wrist, through calculated evasion, saw a situation where the opposition parties dug their claws deep in the sensitive areas of the provincial government's tender parts to elicit denials and more denials. And then the true extent of the penalties exacted, costing taxpayers $585-million led to a situation where the government could hide its incompetence and lack of ethics no longer.

Premier McGuinty prorogued the legislature and resigned as premier. Just hours before the investigating committee hearings into the contempt motion brought against the government. And when he did testify before the committee he blandly professed to having done the right thing. It was always the right thing to do, he said piously, to listen to the people and make decisions in line with their wishes. This from a premier whose governing and administrative incompetence had already cost the taxpayer wasted billions on failed programs.

The cancelled gas plants in Oakville and Mississauga were the right thing to do, he maintained piously. The right thing to do after that would have been to admit sheer slovenly incompetence and manipulation in favour of political win. When government was asked to release all communications, documents and emails relating to the cancelled gas plants it was discovered that whoops, they had all been deleted, no incriminating evidence left. Both the investigating committee and the privacy commissioner hit a dead wall.

That there is a new premier for Ontario, still led by the Liberals under Kathleen Wynne is no great relief, however. Although a former director in then-Premier Dalton McGuinty's office denied accusations of a conspiracy among senior Liberals to delay the release of gas plant documents to the committee ("I never received any order to obstruct anything"), four ministers signed as a quorum of cabinet an arbitration agreement with TransCanada Enterprise over the cancellation of the Oakville gas plant. And the government could still be sued by them.

Legal adviser to the Cabinet Secretariat, William Bromm, has now testified that Kathleen Wynne had been one of four cabinet ministers who had signed that arbitration agreement with TransCanada Enterprise. So much for trust and reliance on a 'new' government committed to responsible administration, for nothing has changed and it's past time it did.