McGuinty tells gas plant hearing he was too busy to keep track of emails

Former Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty kept his cool and kept to his message as he appeared for a second time before the justice committee looking into the cancellation of the Oakville and Mississauga hydro power plants.

The committee is probing the controversial decision to axe the two gas plants in Oakville and Mississauga that have cost taxpayers at least $585 million.
Cavoukian said the only reference to records destruction in the Archives and Recordkeeping Act are a handful of provisions telling people not to delete records.

McGuinty’s calm demeanour was in spite of repeated verbal jabs coming from several members of the opposition, equivelant of poking the opponent in the eye.

McGuinty was back before the justice committee looking into the cancelled gas plants on Tuesday.

Opposition gave him a a rough ride on over the deletion of emails related to the cancelled plants.

McGuinty said that the rules on keeping government emails need to be less confusing.

McGuinty said staff are left to decide themselves if email can be deleted.

He also told the committee, that as premier, he was too busy with more important issues to give a lot of thought to managing office email.

“I do give thought to creating jobs. I do give thought ensure we improve the quality of healthcare, that’s what I focused on,” he said.

At one point, Coservative MPP Vic Fideli became frustrated as McGuinty repeatedly said only staff or individual ministers would have information about the cost of cancelling gas plants.

Meanwhile, Ontario’s information and privacy commissioner says testimony by McGuinty’s former chief of staff about the deletion of emails were misleading and a misinterpretation of facts.

Last week, Chris Morley told a committee probing the cancelled gas plants there are 99 different reasons listed in the Ontario Public Service rule book that instruct government staff to “destroy immediately” several types of records, including emails.

“His focus was entirely on the deletion of records not with their retention and the suggestion that there, and I quote, ‘were 99 reasons why the rules required the destruction of records’  was in my view a misinterpretation of the facts,” Ann Cavoukian said during an appearance before the judicial committee on Tuesday.

To suggest there are 99 circumstances why the destruction of records were required “is highly misleading” she said.

In June, Cavoukian issued her report after investigating a complaint by the NDP’s Peter Tabuns that concluded Liberal staffers, namely the former chief of staff to the energy minister and the former chief of staff to McGuinty, improperly deleted all emails about the gas plants.

“I concluded that email practices at both the minister’s office and the former premier’s office were in clear violation set out in the Archives and Recordkeeping Act,” she said.

Cavoukian told the committee on Tuesday that her office will be meeting with the OPP on Wednesday, which has launched an investigation into the cancelled plants, and will be “fully co-operating.”

“If they are in a position to be able to retrieve some of those records…I’d welcome that,” she said, adding she thought it was unlikely they would unearth them.

The Opposition parties have argued the email purge was to help cover up the total cost of cancelling the gas plants in Oakville and Mississauga.

Dr. Ann Cavoukian, Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, testified on Tuesday. Watch the video below.