Tory MPPs investigating Ontario’s finances want Liberal emails and documents

Emails and documents from former premier Kathleen Wynne, several of her cabinet ministers, top aides and senior bureaucrats are being demanded by government MPPs dominating a select committee that’s putting a microscope on Ontario’s finances after almost 15 years of Liberal rule.

The motion came Thursday at a hearing of the committee on financial transparency, struck by Premier Doug Ford’s administration to examine how the provincial deficit ballooned to $15 billion from Wynne’s pre-election estimate of $6.7 billion last spring.

Progressive Conservative MPP Ross Romano told the committee of six Tory and three New Democrat MPPs that the government wants the records within three weeks in a searchable electronic format “with no relevant information redacted or sealed, regardless of any claim of privilege or confidentiality.”

The government intends to call a first set of witnesses, including Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk, staff from the province’s Financial Accountability Office, Cabinet Secretary Steve Orsini — the chief of the civil service under Wynne and now under Ford — and former B.C. premier Gordon Campbell, who led a commission of inquiry into Ontario’s books after the election.

NDP members repeatedly raised concerns that the committee has not set terms of reference for calling and questioning witnesses, which could result in a partisan free-for-all dominated by the government.

“This could be a very good process or it could be a kangaroo court,” New Democrat MPP John Vanthof warned.

The government is seeking emails, documents and other records shedding light on Wynne’s “fair hydro plan,” which cut prices 25 per cent last year by borrowing billions of dollars to amortize the cost of hydro system improvements over a longer period, and on an accounting dispute with the auditor general over whether to book a teacher and civil service pension surplus of $11 billion as an asset.

There are no Liberals on the committee because the party fell to seven seats in the June election, below the threshold for official party status.

But Wynne, who remains an MPP, has said the accounting for the hydro plan and pension assets was made public, as were the costs of her election promises vetted in the auditor’s pre-election financial report.

The difference between the $6.7-billion deficit figure quoted by the Liberals and the $15 billion cited by Ford includes the accounting dispute — which does not affect the province’s cash position — and Liberal election promises such as expanded daycare, which the PC government is not implementing.