Was firing a manufactured scandal?

Queen’s Park insiders question Ford’s role in sacking Michael Harris

An Ontario PC Party MPP who was part of the review of texts sent by Michael Harris to a former Queen’s Park intern said the nomination committee did not agree they were a firing offence.

That contradicts the official party line that the Kitchener-Conestoga MPP was turfed after the Tory’s provincial nomination committee (PNC) “unanimously decided to disqualify” Harris as a candidate, after looking at some of the politician’s text messages from 2012.

But Haldimand-Norfolk MPP Toby Barrett, one of two MPPs who sit on the Tories’ committee, said the PNC didn’t recommend Harris be turfed over the texts.

Instead, the decision to dismiss the two-time incumbent came from the party’s leadership. He couldn’t explain how a text conversation that the party was aware of back in 2013 suddenly became grounds for dismissal in April 2018.

“We were just reviewing the evidence. I don’t know whether we were necessarily making a recommendation to remove him,” Barrett said. The Haldimand-Norfolk MPP also said the committee didn’t recommend Harris be replaced by Mike Harris Jr., the son of former premier Mike Harris.

That came straight from PC Leader Doug Ford himself, Barrett said — contradicting Ford’s statement last week that he was just acting on the advice of the PNC when he appointed Harris Jr.

The allegation against Michael Harris was raised inter- nally on April 6, the day after Harris Jr. lost the PC nomination in neighbouring Waterloo.

As details emerge that contradict the official version of the Harris story, PC party insiders — including former and current MPPs and Queen’s Park staff — say Harris’s firing for sexting with a former government intern looks more and more like a manufactured scandal.

That includes the revelation the former intern involved never filed a formal complaint, and that her 2013 grievance with the party was about a PC Party of Ontario job she was passed over for, not Harris’s behaviour. It appears the woman only shared the flirty text messages she exchanged with Harris as leverage in the dispute.

That former intern, now a civil servant, said she can’t talk about her interaction with Harris because of her job. The Doug Ford campaign declined to talk about discrepancies in its story around Harris’s dismissal.

Harris said he’s troubled by the new information about the scandal that derailed his political career. “It’s troubling to hear the most recent developments and to get a clearer picture of how this actually transpired,” he said in a statement.