NDP SEEKS ANSWERS FROM WYNNE

Tories want resignation over Sudbury scandal

• Ontario’s New Democrats demanded Premier Kathleen Wynne “come clean” Friday about her role — if any — in the Sudbury byelection scandal that led to criminal charges against a senior Liberal operative.

The Ontario Provincial Police charged Gerry Lougheed, a prominent local Liberal, Thursday after a probe into claims he offered former candidate Andrew Olivier a job to withdraw from a Feb. 5 byelection.

Wynne refused to answer when asked directly who had told Lougheed to make the job offer, insisting she couldn’t comment because the case is now before the courts.

All the premier has to do is say “No,” said Gilles Bis- son, the New Democrat house leader.

“If she didn’t do it she should at least say so. And I don’t see the courts as having anything to do with her ability to be able to deny that, in fact, she had anything to do with it.”

The Progressive Conservatives also want to know if Wynne ordered Lougheed to offer Olivier an incentive to withdraw and called on the premier to step down until the charges are dealt with.

Wynne maintains the Liberals were just trying to keep Olivier in the party fold and there was no need to offer him anything because she had already decided he would not run in the byelection.

The premier had convinced federal New Democrat MP Glenn Thibeault to be the Liberal candidate. Lougheed said she wanted Olivier to withdraw and agree to nominate his replacement.

Olivier released recordings of his conversations with Lougheed and Wynne’s deputy chief of staff, Pat Sorbara, but he did not record his conversation with the premier.

“I come to you on behalf of the premier,” Lougheed said.

“The premier wants to talk to you. They would like to present to you options in terms of appointments, jobs or whatever that you and her and Pat Sorbara can talk about.”

The recording is pretty damning, Bisson said.

“It is clear somebody in the premier’s office said, ‘ Go and offer Mr. Olivier a bribe not to run in the provincial byelection.’ The tapes are clear,” he said. “The premier has a responsibility to the people of Ontario to say ‘I did or I did not order this particular thing to happen.’ ”

During the phone conversation, Sorbara told Olivier the premier wanted to make sure he still had a role to play in the party, and said he could go on the provincial Liberal executive or work in Thibeault’s office in Sudbury.

“We should have the broader discussion about what you’d be most interested in doing and then decide what shape that could take,” Sorbara said.

“Whether it’s a full-time or part-time job in a constituency office, whether it is appointments to boards and commissions, whether it is going on the executive, we just need to better understand what is it that you most want to do.”

Both Lougheed and Sorbara deny any wrongdoing. Lougheed issued a statement vowing to “vigorously defend these charges in the courts.”

Elections Ontario said Sorbara and Lougheed’s actions were an “apparent contravention” of the Elections Act concerning bribery, but it has no mandate to conduct prosecutions, so the OPP must decide whether to lay charges.

Wynne said Thursday police had told Sorbara’s lawyer she would not face criminal charges.

Lougheed, 61, is expected to appear in a Sudbury court Nov. 18 to face one criminal code count of counselling an offence not committed and one count of unlawfully influencing or negotiating appointments.