Scandalous Dodges - Dalton McGuilty

"The fact that any member of a minister's political staff would think it appropriate to delete all email records, without exercising any judgement regarding the content of those records and the possible need to retain them ... is, quite frankly, unbelievable."
Ontario Privacy Commissioner Anne Cavoukian

Colin McConnell / Toronto Star file photo

Former premier Dalton McGuinty says he learned about the allegations against his former chief of staff when they were reported in the news last week.

It is now well past time for the current provincial government in Ontario to call an election. If Ontario voters decide they still have trust in provincial Liberals they can vote them back into office as they've done on previous occasions. The government of former Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty was rife with scandal and corruption. Despite which, voters cast votes of trust for the Ontario Liberal party.

Dalton McGuinty's management of provincial issues and the economy was a nightmare. His sanctimonious handling of so many files was so disastrous, it is unimaginable that Ontarians continued to vote him and his party back into power time and again. There was the Caledonia standoff when Premier McGuinty instructed the Ontario Provincial Police not to arrest the aboriginal perpetrators of intimidation and violence against a community in Caledonia, making a mockery of law and order.

Native protesters stand at a housing development near Caledonia, Ont., despite a court order asking them to leave, on March 22, 2006.  (Sheryl Nadler/The Canadian Press)

And then there was the eHealth scandal, when it was revealed that the computerization of provincial health records was an absolute mess, costing almost a billion dollars in wasted effort and enormous salaries though nothing of value was ever produced. On top of that was the Ornge air ambulance scandal with those in authority misusing public funds and becoming personally wealthy on the taxpayers' dime.

Wind turbines at the Erie Shores Wind Farm near Port Burwell, ON. Credits: CRAIG GLOVER/The London Free Press/QMI AGENCY

Then again, the McGuinty government was determined to earn the province recognition as the most 'green' jurisdiction in North America, signing on to a costly contract with a South Korean company for the production of wind turbines, and paying out expensive energy contracts for solar power-generated electricity, and passing on the enormous costs to Ontario users, while ending up with more electrical power than the province could use, and selling it at a loss to New York state.

It looked possible that the Liberals might lose the 2011 election, or at least some pretty important Toronto seats, and that's when Dalton McGuinty resorted to  connivance resulting in the cancellation of two Toronto-area gas plants under construction that were hugely unpopular in the areas where they were being built, Mississauga and Oakville. He smugly informed an enquiry launched into the affair that "it's never too late" to do the "right thing".

As though he had been motivated by voters' concerns, and not by his own concerns relating to lose seats during an election campaign. The cancellations of those gas plants eventually was revealed to be $1-billion in penalty fees. More hard-earned tax dollars flushed away by a government that views it as easy-come, easy-go. What's more, Mr. McGuinty authorized his trusted staff to make an effort to ensure that any documentation revolving around that cancellation not come to public light.

And now that the Ontario Provincial Police in launching a criminal investigation has concluded that criminal acts did indeed take place, with the unauthorized, underhanded and clearly illegal destruction of email that would fully incriminate the government be wiped off hard drives, it's time for a new election. Ontario's current premier was a key, high-level cabinet minister at the time of the election, and she was also co-chair of the election.

Premier Kathleen Wynne was not elected premier of the province. The man elected as premier after manipulating events to enable his party to return, albeit to a minority place, decided when things finally got too hot, that he would prefer to leave public office and take up an offer at Harvard as living proof, presumably, that corruption will get you everywhere and you can live to tell the tale. Premier Wynne, in other words, is an interim premier.

It is past time for Andrea Horwath, leader of the New Democratic Party, whose considerable ability and pleasure in extorting concessions from the liberals in lieu of bringing down the government by voting against, for example, a budget that now liberally sprinkles goodies to various constituencies to spread the pixie dust of gratitude and forgetfulness, join the Conservatives in arranging for a fresh, new election.

And then let the consequences fall where they may. At least the electorate will be given a choice and another chance at a choice other than the irremediably corrupt Liberals.