Ontario Gas Plants Report Is Liberal 'Whitewash': Opposition

TORONTO - A legislative committee report into the deletion of government emails on two cancelled gas plants is nothing but a Liberal "whitewash," Ontario's opposition parties charged Tuesday.

"This was a cover up of a cover up," said New Democrat Jagmeet Singh. "The deletion of emails was covering up the truth, and now the report that's been tabled further covers up that truth."

The committee began hearings into the destruction of gas plant documents in February 2013 when the Progressive Conservatives and NDP controlled the agenda because the Liberals were in a minority government.

Former Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty’s new gig as a lobbyist is problematic

The last time we heard from Dalton McGuinty, he was testifying before a committee of the Ontario legislature on his election-eve decision to cancel the construction of two electricity plants, at a cost, it was belatedly revealed, in excess of $1 billion. McGuinty was, as ever, unrepentant. “It’s never too late,” he admonished the committee, “to do the right thing.”

Or the wrong thing, apparently. A year and a half after his tire-screeching departure from office, the former premier has registered to lobby the government he led, on behalf of an educational software company, Desire2Learn, that benefited from millions of dollars in grants from that same government. What is more, neither McGuinty nor any of his erstwhile cabinet seatmates seem able to see why anyone would have a problem with this. Which sort of tells you why it’s a problem, and why this government has run into so many such “problems.”

Dalton McGuinty's New Lobbyist Gig Defended By Ontario Liberals

TORONTO - The more schools that use software from an Ontario-based company, the more jobs will be created in the province, former premier Dalton McGuinty said Wednesday as he defended his new role as a registered lobbyist.

McGuinty signed on to the Ontario lobbyist registry in August — 18 months after he left office following a decade as premier — to act on behalf of Kitchener-based Desire2Learn, which develops educational software.

Ontario Power Plant Cancellations: Many reasons to delete documents, says former McGuinty chief of staff

There are “at least 99 different reasons” political staff and bureaucrats must delete documents, Dalton McGuinty’s former chief of staff said Tuesday at a combative hearing into the gas plant scandal.

Testifying under oath to MPPs probing the cancellations of two power plants before the 2011 election to save five Liberal seats, Chris Morley said he has no additional documents or notes on the decisions that have dogged the minority Liberal administration.

McGuinty's staff purged records after Ontario power-plants probe began

The e-mail records of a close adviser to Ontario’s former premier were purged five weeks after a legislative committee ordered the government to release documents in connection with the controversial cancellation of two gas-fired power plants.

Chris Morley, chief of staff to former premier Dalton McGuinty, was directly involved in sensitive settlement talks with TransCanada Corp., the Calgary energy giant that was to build the province’s third-largest gas-fired power plant in Oakville.

You can't rewrite history — or delete it

Our two aborted gas-fired power plants will never produce a single kilowatt of power, but they still generate electrical shocks that jolt the governing Liberals.

Unplugging those two gas plants has proved financially costly.

Erasing the email trail has proved even more politically costly.

Sensitive messages were illegally deleted by Liberal staffers. And in the politics of power, the coverup is worse than the cancellation.

Dalton McGuinty staffers broke law by deleting gas plant emails

Senior staff members in the offices of both the Ontario energy minister and former premier Dalton McGuinty intentionally deleted emails about the cancellation of gas plants in Oakville and Mississauga, according to the province's privacy commissioner.

The finding, published in a special report Wednesday called Deleting Accountability: Records Management Practices of Political Staff, adds fuel to opposition accusations that Ontario's Liberal government was trying to cover up the cost of cancelling the controversial projects.

Dalton McGuinty says 'joy and honour' to serve as premier

After nine years as premier of Ontario, Dalton McGuinty on Friday said thank you to Ontarians and members of the provincial Liberal Party, while stressing unity as the party chooses its next leader.

"It has been my joy and honour to serve as your premier," he said.

Despite his Premier Dad nickname, McGuinty is a cynical politician cast in the same mould as Harper

Before he got to the meat of a speech to a Toronto business audience this week, Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan took a moment to salute the man who beat him for the provincial Liberal leadership 16 years ago and who is stepping down after nine years as Premier.

“His legacy will survive the taunts, it will survive the unfair comments,” Mr. Duncan said of Dalton McGuinty.

OK. I’m going to give it a go anyway.

Education Minister Laurel Broten set to impose contracts on Ontario teachers

Education Minister Laurel Broten will impose contracts on public school teachers under the minority Liberal government’s controversial Bill 115 before classes resume Monday, the Star has learned.

The details — to be announced at a news conference Thursday — mirror the two-year deals reached last summer with Catholic and French-language teachers, freezing pay for most, reducing sick days and limiting how much unclaimed sick time can be cashed out at retirement.

Premier Dalton McGuinty disappears into mystery

An aura of mystery hovers around Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty. There’s two words I doubt you ever expected to hear together (the ones starting with M). Is it possible he needs an intervention? Not a high-rent one like the invasions of Iraq or Afghanistan: a trashy intervention like you see on reality TV. He did say he needs a hug. Is that a cry for help or what?

Dalton McGuinty wants ‘locked door’ policy at all Ontario elementary schools by next fall

hereIn the wake of the deadly school shooting in Newtown, Conn., Ontario is earmarking $10 million for front door locks, entry buzzers and security cameras.

“It’s an appropriate and a reasonable response,” Premier Dalton McGuinty said Thursday at a Catholic school near Keele St. and Highway 401.

Dalton McGuinty scores an assist as WTO torpedoes Ontario green strategy

Say goodbye to Dalton McGuinty’s green industry strategy for jobs and manufacturing. The World Trade Organization may have put the boots to it. But the Ontario premier and his government were unwitting accomplices.

Critics are already denouncing the trade body for vetoing a Buy Ontario plan designed to revitalize the province’s manufacturing base.

Dalton McGuinty’s mission failure

Premier Dalton McGuinty’s misfortune was to govern Ontario, and ours to be governed by him, at a time when the province faced excruciating challenges.

McGuinty came of age politically during the 1990s, decade of the New World Order. He embodies that decade’s triumphant neo-liberalism, a paradigm on public service that almost totally upended the one that preceded it.

McGuinty says he prorogued to avoid opposition 'shenanigans'

Premier Dalton McGuinty says he had to prorogue the Ontario legislature because of "shenanigans" and the "wasting of time" by opposition members.

McGuinty, in an interview airing Saturday on CBC Radio's The House, defended his controversial prorogation, saying that the legislature was scheduled to sit 96 days and ended up sitting for 76 of those days.

Dalton McGuinty Severance Package: Ontario Premier Defends $300,000 Pay Day For Quitting

TORONTO - Dalton McGuinty says the $300,000-severance pay he will receive after stepping down as Ontario premier is a much better deal for taxpayers than the gold plated pensions MPPs used to receive.

Whether they quit or lose in an election, members of the legislature are entitled to six months' pay for less than four years service, one year's pay for four to eight years on the job, and 18 months' pay for those who sit even longer than that.

The rule of three strikes Harper, McGuinty

In 2003 then-Ontario premier Ernie Eves made the politically disastrous decision to unveil his government’s annual budget, not in the provincial legislature, but in an auto-parts plant in Brampton.

On the day of the so-called Magna budget, the choice of venue seemed pointless and weird – just another odd decision by an eccentric leader. But it soon morphed into more than that: a symbol of everything that had gone wrong with democracy in Ontario during the Mike Harris era, which Eves had inherited. In October of that year the Eves Conservatives suffered a landslide loss to one Dalton McGuinty, who promised civility, decency and a breath of fresh air.

Politicians can’t trample on democratic process without hurting themselves

In 2003, then-Ontario premier Ernie Eves made the politically disastrous decision to unveil his government’s annual budget, not in the provincial legislature, but in an auto-parts plant in Brampton.

On the day of the so-called Magna budget, the choice of venue seemed pointless and weird – just another odd decision by an eccentric leader. But it soon morphed into more than that: a symbol of everything that had gone wrong with democracy in Ontario during the Mike Harris era, which Eves had inherited. In October of that year the Eves Conservatives suffered a landslide loss to one Dalton McGuinty, who promised civility, decency and a breath of fresh air.

Prorogation may look like prologue come the new year

Why did he do it? How did Dalton McGuinty get away with his October surprise, no questions asked?

Two weeks after the premier pressed the prorogation button, winding down the legislature without warning, he is learning the same painful lesson that Stephen Harper learned in 2008: Canadians care about constitutional arcana and democratic tradition.

Dalton McGuinty’s disgraceful exit

From where I sit, Dalton McGuinty had some ups and downs as premier of Ontario for nine years. On the plus side of the ledger: The performance of the education system was shit-hot under his leadership; he introduced a feed-in-tariff for clean energy; passed the City of  Toronto Act; committed to a big investment in Toronto transit construction; began the process of coordinating a regional transportation strategy in the GTA under Metrolinx; and delivered labour peace for a couple terms of office. On the minus side: he presided over—and passed the laws that enabled—the G20 policing fiasco; stood by scandal after scandal in his ministries; mismanaged the introduction of the FIT; backed off, repeatedly, his investment in transit building (an investment already inadequate to our needs); saw Metrolinx turn into a do-nothing-fast process shop; and brought an abrupt end to the labour peace he’d created by becoming bad cop to the same unions he’d been good-copping for so long. And I’m not sure if it was a good or a bad thing, but he sure rained money down on tech and innovation startups to compensate for a weak-ass venture-capital climate here in Canada.