Gas plant scandal still haunting Liberals

With the election less than a week away Ontario’s opposition parties are demanding that premier Kathleen Wynne release all documents relating to the cancelled gas plants.

This follows word that the OPP’s anti-rackets squad served a court order at the legislature on Wednesday. Police seized 24 computer hard drives from the premier’s office — and were looking for visitor and security logs that the justice committee requested. The opposition parties pounced on this — and held a news conference at Queen’s Park this morning.

Lisa MacLeod is the P.C. Energy critic: “It took the OPP and a court order this week in order to say we need to have those documents or they need to have those documents within 10 days. If the Liberals can stand on the legislative floor of the assembly and lie to the opposition parties about the documentation, I think it speaks volumes about this party, and the lengths they’ll go to in order to stay in power.”

Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath: “I think she has an obligation to do everything she can to make sure those documents get released. Whether it’s an official request, or whether it’s simply picking up the phone and ensuring that these things get done speedily.”

Horwath says the police visit is just another reminder that Ontario needs a change of government on June 12th.

P.C. Leader, Tim Hudak, says, if elected, he’ll call a judicial inquiry into the gas plant scandal immediately: “We need the answers on the billion dollars that was taken out of your pockets simply to save a couple liberal seats. We also need to set an important tone, for any leader, and politician of any political party that this kind of activity will never ever happen in the province of Ontario again.”

Liberal Leader Kathleen Wynne was in Newmarket today, where she addressed concern over the investigation: “Let me just say that I have been very clear about my intention and my commitment and my follow through on providing all the information that we have in terms of the relocation of the gas plants. I was the premier that opened up the process and made sure that we had a full committee process. The OPP is doing its work and we will continue to co-operate.”

While at a bus maintenance facility in Newmarket, Wynne tried to switch the focus to transit. She repeated the Liberal plan to spend 29-billion dollars on transit in Ontario. 15-billion will be dedicated to projects in the Greater Toronto Hamilton Area.