More documents on cancelled gas plants recovered by watchdog: Tories
Posted July 10, 2013 4:14 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Ontario’s Conservatives say Information and Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian has uncovered more documents on two cancelled gas plants.
Energy critic Vic Fedeli says Cavoukian told him that she had found documents that were previously hidden as part of a batch the governing Liberals claimed were “unrecoverable.”
Cavoukian’s office hasn’t confirmed that more documents were found, but a spokesman says she’ll issue a statement shortly.
Cavoukian concluded last month in a scathing report that senior Liberals broke the law by deleting emails related to the two gas plants in Oakville and Mississauga.
She also reported that top Liberals in then-Premier Dalton McGuinty’s office not only deleted their emails on the gas plants, but also tried to wipe the data completely from government computers.
The opposition parties say the emails were wiped out to try to cover up the true costs of cancelling the gas plants, which has grown to an estimated $585 million.
Ontario Provincial Police are investigating the matter.
Cavoukian’s report said David Livingston, McGuinty’s chief of staff, tried as late as January to find out how to permanently delete emails related to the gas plants.
McGuinty told a legislative committee that Liberal staff did their best to follow confusing, contradictory and murky guidelines on document retention, and the rules need to be clarified.
