LIBERALS PUT LIBERALS FIRST
A CRIMINAL CONVICTION CONFIRMS WHAT ONTARIANS ALREADY KNEW
When he abruptly quit his job five years ago, former Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty let it be known he was upset at the furor opposition members had mounted over a pair of cancelled gas plants.
“The opposition’s political games are holding Ontario back,” he railed, fed up with demands for ever-more information, more inquiries, more answers about his mid- campaign decision to cancel the two projects at a cost of $ 1 billion, a decision that appeared to have everything to do with Liberal election prospects and little to do with public good. Before departing he pointedly prorogued the legislature, shutting down hearings on the scandal while the Liberals picked a new leader.
Now that leader — Kathleen Wynne, a senior member of McGuinty’s cabinet and co- chair of the 2011 reelection campaign — wants it known that she sees the gas plant scandal as tired, old and unworthy of the attention the media and opposition insist on paying it. Indeed, when former McGuinty chief of staff David Livingston was convicted Friday of deliberately destroying documents in an effort to contain the scandal, Wynne’s office treated it as some ancient issue from a distant past. (McGuinty himself had not faced any charges.)
A spokesperson sighed that Livingston and Laura Miller — who helped Livingston wipe clean 20 hard drives but was cleared by Justice Timothy Lipson — were “former officials of the former premier.” Nobodies, in other words. Hardly worth noticing … certainly nothing to do with Wynne’s own struggling government, now preparing for a June election.
In Liberal eyes, it’s all just ho-hum stuff. Hadn’t they already distanced themselves from the McGuinty way of doing things? Haven’t they avoided blanket hard- drive wiping ever since? Haven’t they done their best to pret end Livingston doesn’ t exist?
While Liberals may wish that to be true, it’s possible that many Ontarians feel otherwise. While neither Wynne nor her government were on trial, the methods, culture and attitude behind Livingston’s actions go to the heart of what troubles so many people about the way the Liberals do business.
Lipson made clear his view that Livingston was engaged in a politically- driven effort to protect his boss by destroying records he’d been warned to preserve.
“Mr. Livingston’s plan to eliminate sensitive and confidential work- related data, in my view, amounted to a ‘ scorched earth’ strategy, where information that could be potentially useful to adversaries, both within and outside of the Liberal Party, would be destroyed,” he said. He deceived cabinet secretary Peter Wallace, gained special access to the hard drives, and then had Miller’s boyfriend wipe them clean.
What resonates is the single- mindedness of the Liberal view that power must be protected at all costs, opponents must be hobbled by any and all means, and that serving party interests comes above all else, legal, ethical or otherwise.
Other Liberal officials have survived recent trials that did not produce convictions, but left a distinct stain on any claim to principled government. The party has relentlessly pursued practices of primary benefit to its own fortunes: an auditorgeneral too critical of selfpromoting ads has her veto power removed; an ombudsman who takes obvious glee in skewering government failures is dumped; unions friendly to the government find themselves offered generous contract extensions as the election nears, and their negotiating costs covered at public expense; doctors — less willing to withdraw their services than teachers or bureaucrats — find themselves targeted for attack by a government eager for an opportunity to posture.
Electricity bills grossly i nflated by government policies are accorded subsidies at a cost of billions in new borrowing, solely to dilute anger in advance of the forthcoming election. The added debt is then artfully hidden by accounting manoeuvres to enable the finance minister to falsely claim a balanced budget. The l ost r evenue is r ecouped via a new tax on carbon, negating the promised savings.
Minimum wage rates are increased 30 per cent over barely a year’s time — difficult for small businesses to absorb without extensive pain, but targeted to Liberal electoral hopes. When the predicted problems arise — restaurants forced to cut staff or reduce benefits — Wynne and her ministers attack the employers as bullies rather than acknowledge their own role in setting off the spiral. When daycare costs — already the highest in the country — are forced up by the pay rise, the government promises more spending, fuelled by more borrowing, to provide more spaces with more subsidies. The spending spiral thus escalates, as debt fuels more spending which pushes up more costs which requires more borrowing.
Ontarians have been absorbing these scorched-earth tactics for years. Only after a sustained public outcry did Wynne end the practice of selling access to herself and top Liberals in return for hefty “donations.” In September the government finally admitted the province has far more power than it needs, and ended plans for billions more in unnecessary projects. Since Wynne’s government introduced rent controls in its “Fair Housing” plan last year, rents have increased 15 per cent; Toronto passed Vancouver this month as the most expensive rental market in Canada.
What emerges from it all is the ongoing priority put on Liberal needs over those of the province, and often at voters’ expense. Livingston acted because his first priority was to defend the reputation of the McGuinty government, even as McGuinty himself was leaving, rather than respect the responsibility entrusted to him to retain crucial records. He shrugged off explicit warnings from Wallace as “political bullshit” and barrelled ahead. His lawyers saw the nature of his crime as so acceptable they sought to have the charges thrown out without need for a defence.
Lipson didn’t grant their request. On Friday he said Livingston knew exactly what he was doing, and that it was all about politics.
“No i ssues were more challenging or more dangerous to the minority Liberal government than those related to the gas plants controversy,” he said. “This was the grim political backdrop.”
Wynne and her cheerleaders will now do their best to maintain the claim that it’s old news, that Ontarians forgave them long ago and that any election impact will be negligible. Like Livingston, they will ignore the warnings and do whatever it takes to protect themselves and the party, at whatever public cost.