Top Liberals face charges in Sudbury byelection
Wynne staffer and fundraiser face Elections Act allegations
The head of Premier Kathleen Wynne’s re-election campaign and a Liberal fundraiser are facing Elections Act charges for alleged bribery in the 2015 Sudbury byelection.
Patricia Sorbara, until recently Wynne’s deputy chief of staff, and Sudbury funeral director Gerry Lougheed will be charged by Ontario Provincial Police, the Star has learned.
Police swore the information before a justice of the peace on Monday and will formally announce the charges Tuesday.
The dramatic move, which comes with the Nov. 17 byelection campaigns underway in Niagara West-Glanbrook and Ottawa-Vanier, follows almost two years of investigation.
Criminal charges of bribery were stayed against Lougheed in Sudbury last April while detectives continued their probe into the lesser offences under the Elections Act.
Sorbara, who moved from Wynne’s office to become CEO and director of the 2018 Liberal campaign on Oct. 3, was never criminally charged.
Under provincial law, “no person shall, directly or indirectly, give, procure or promise or agree to procure an office or employment to induce a person to become a candidate, refrain from becoming a candidate or withdraw his or her candidacy.”
Police were tight-lipped Monday, with OPP Det.-Supt. Dave Truax saying only that “the investigation is ongoing.”
The OPP’s move appears to have blindsided the government and neither Sorbara nor Lougheed were immediately available for comment Monday night.
Earlier on Monday, Wynne said she didn’t know of any developments in the case.
“I’m not aware of anything new — I don’t know whether there’s something new,” Wynne said at a news conference with Energy Minister Glenn Thibeault, who won the hardfought 2015 contest in Sudbury.
The Elections Act charges stem from the campaign in which paraple- gic mortgage broker Andrew Olivier claimed both Sorbara and Lougheed offered him jobs to drop out of the nomination race, clearing the way for Wynne’s preferred candidate.
That was Thibeault, then a New Democrat MP who left federal politics and defected to the provincial Liberals. He has been in Wynne’s cabinet since last June.
Olivier had been the Liberal candidate in the 2014 province-wide election, replacing retired cabinet minister Rick Bartolucci. But he placed second in that vote to New Democrat Joe Cimino, who quit five months later over family issues, giving the Liberals a chance to win the riding back.
The mortgage broker had hoped to be the Liberal flag-bearer again; however, Wynne preferred Thi- beault, who had been wooed by Lougheed.
Last April, the OPP and prosecutors stayed one count of unlawfully influencing or negotiating appointments and another of counselling an offence not committed against Lougheed.
Under a stay, charges are set aside and the Crown has one year to reinstate them. The two charges, which are rarely used by prosecutors, carry a prison sentence of up to seven years.
At that time, court in Sudbury heard that police had finished their investigation into whether Lougheed and Sorbara, then serving as Wynne’s deputy chief of staff, violated the Elections Act.
Prosecutors had the information from police and were said to be deciding whether to lay charges.
Any Elections Act charges are in a lower, non-criminal category of violations known as provincial offences, where penalties range from fines of up to $25,000 and maximum jail sentences of two years less a day.
Although Sorbara was not charged criminally with Lougheed, police had been investigating her possible election violations after Olivier made public his tapes of conversations.
Olivier — who tapes conversations because he cannot take notes — alleged they offered him jobs in return for abandoning his nomination bid.
In one tape, Lougheed said: “The premier wants to talk. They would like to present you options in terms of appointments, jobs, whatever, that you and her and Pat Sorbara could talk about.”
In another, Sorbara told Olivier “we should have the broader discussion about what is it that you’d be most interested in doing . . . whether it’s a full-time or part-time job in a (constituency) office, whether it is appointments, supports or commissions.”