NDP walks with Wynne absent

Fireworks at Queen’s Park Monday — again over the cancelled gas plant scandal. The Progressive Conservatives say the Liberals dropped another bombshell, when government house leader John Milloy admitted that the tech expert who may have wiped Liberal hard drives clean of evidence was in fact employed by the Liberal party until two days ago.

Last week, court documents were released that alleged that Dalton McGuinty’s former chief of staff gave computer access to a company owned by Peter Faist, in order to delete information. Faist’s girlfriend was a senior Liberal in McGuinty’s office. The Tories immediately started alleging that Kathleen Wynne was equally responsible in the scandal, because she took office when that was happening, and Wynne responded by threatening legal action against the Tories if they didn’t retract the accusations.

Tim Hudak: “The criminal destruction of evidence took place February 6th and March 20th. So come clean. Was she responsible or was she willfully negligent.”

John Milloy: “The leader of the opposition has no interest in the facts. The documents tabled in court make it clear the accusations deal with the former chief of staff of Mr. McGuinty and have nothing to do with the current premier.”

The debate over who was responsible in the gas plant cancellation cover up continued but the premier was in Sault Ste. Marie for an announcement.

Andrea Horwath: “By refusing to face questions today, the premier is making a mockery of accountability. New Democrats will not participate.”

NDP MPP’s left their seats.

From Sault Ste. Marie, the premier confirmed her intent to pursue legal action if Tim Hudak doesn’t withdraw his accusations. She did not apologize for her absence at Queen’s Park: “This trip has been planned for many weeks and I can as easily imagine a question about why I don’t travel to the north more.”

But the Tories say the biggest revelation was that the IT company responsible for the alleged hard drive wiping still worked for the Liberals until very recently.

Milloy said: “The company was informed yesterday that its services were terminated — the proper authorities were made aware.”

MacLeod said: This raises a number of questons about the gas plant scandal. What other scandals exist? This is a very serious revelation. If we thought last Thursday was a bombshell that rocked Queen’s Park, I think today’s revelations exceed that.”

The premier says she has no knowledge of anyone destroying information after she took office in February of last year. We’ll see whether a lawsuit transpires because the Tories still have all the same allegations on their website, which Wynne, with legal advice, says is false and defamatory. The premier’s office says the legal advice is not being paid for with public money.