Well, the Ontario Liberal-led legislative committee investigating the gas plant scandal has come out with its report. And surprise – surprise! The Liberal majority on the committee concluded that the costs of the cancellation of the two infamous Ontario gas plants were excessive.
Furthermore, according to Premier Wynne, the Liberals have learned their lesson. They will be more transparent and open.
In the immortal words of NDP provincial leader, Andrea Horwath, “what a load of bull spit!”
In the view of the Ontario Auditor General, and in my humble opinion, the expenditure of over $1 billion dollars to cancel, then relocate and rebuild the gas plants, was totally unnecessary and an almost criminal waste of taxpayer money.
Based on the Ontario Auditor General’s report (which extensively investigated the gas plant cancellations) the then Ontario Liberal McGuinty government ( of which Wynne was a senior cabinet minister) clearly authorized its outside counsel to negotiate the payment of hundreds of millions of dollars, to a greedy American hedge fund lender and to an
incompetent gas plant operator, unnecessarily, so as to make this gas plant cancellation debacle go quietly away. Out of public sight. And out of the public mind. (See here and here)
Then the McGuinty/Wynne government lied about the full amount paid. Then when the opposition parties demanded to see the emails and documents relating to the gas plant cancellation, the very same government lied about the existence of these documents.
Then in order to further cover up, the cover up, the same government retained computer security expert Peter Faist, boyfriend of Laura Miller, ( key McGuinty staffer) to wipe out the offending documents and emails in the Premier’s office.
Then to further cover up, the cover up, the Wynne government triple covered up, by refusing to permit the investigating legislative committee to obtain the testimony of the said Peter Faist.
It is imperative that both opposition parties keep Wynne’s feet to fire on this scandal, as well as the numerous other outstanding Liberal scandals, still under investigation- MaRS, Sudbury election bribe, eHealth, Ornge, just to name the most deplorable.
Mitch Wolfe: The Playful Contrarian 