Liberal job offer was unclear, trial hears
Olivier says he wasn’t sure if party position would be paid in return for stepping aside
SUDBURY— A one-time Liberal candidate rejected by Premier Kathleen Wynne for a 2015 byelection says he’s not certain he was being offered paid jobs to step aside from the Liberal party’s nomination race.
“I wasn’t sure they were monetary or not,” Andrew Olivier said Friday in the Election Act bribery trial of former Wynne deputy chief of staff Patricia Sorbara and Sudbury Liberal organizer Gerry Lougheed.
The two are accused of offering jobs or appointments to Olivier to make way for defecting NDP MP Glenn Thibeault, tabbed by Wynne as the best bet to win the riding back.
Olivier, the Liberal candidate for Sudbury in the 2014 election, had hoped to reprise that role after the surprise resignation of New Democrat MPP Joe Cimino five months into his term, setting the stage for the byelection in February 2015.
Lougheed lawyer Michael Lacy put it to Olivier during cross-examination that “he was offered an opportunity to continue to have a role in the party” as opposed to government posts.
“I wasn’t100-per-cent sure,” Olivier replied.
Lacy used courtroom television screens to show a transcript of an interview with Ontario Provincial Police investigators in which he was asked if he felt he had been offered rewards or benefits to exit the nomination race.
According to the transcript from the interview about nine days after the alleged offers were made by Sorbara and Lougheed on Dec. 11 and 12 of 2014, Olivier told police “it was an opportunity to be in the party. I had no interest in finding out if these were paid positions.”
Lacy also revealed an email memo showing a Sudbury Liberal riding association executive, Andre Bisson, was working behind the scenes to convince the Toronto party hierarchy to have Olivier acclaimed or appointed the byelection candidate before Thibeault came into the picture.
“I know that he was lobbying for me,” said Olivier.
“It’s starting to ring a bell for me now that you’re saying it,” he told Lacy.
Lacy drew a parallel between Bisson’s actions on behalf of Olivier and the later push by Wynne and the central party to have Thibeault acclaimed or appointed as the candidate.
“They were lobbying for the very same thing the Liberal party wanted for Mr. Thibeault . . . the very thing you called not democratic.”
Sorbara lawyer Brian Greenspan and Lacy have argued the charges against their clients have no merit because Thibeault had decided to accept the premier’s official approval as the candidate before the conversations with Lougheed and Sorbara took place.
“Wouldn’t you agree, sir, he was attempting to soften the blow?” Lacy asked Olivier about the offer from Lougheed.
“I didn’t know that was his intention,” Olivier replied.
In the conversation Olivier held with Lougheed after Thibeault accepted the candidacy, Lougheed said: “The premier wants to talk. They would like to present you options in terms of appointments, jobs, what- ever, that you and her and Pat Sorbara could talk about.”
A tape of the conversation was replayed in court as the trial began Thursday.
Olivier, a mortgage broker who is quadriplegic, tapes some calls and conversations because he cannot take notes.
He placed second in the 2014 election, as the Liberals lost the riding held for the previous 18 years by veteran Liberal cabinet minister Rick Bartolucci, who is slated to testify next week before Wynne’s appearance on Wednesday.
Olivier has repeatedly testified that he hoped the party hierarchy could be convinced to hold a nomination race, even after he was told by Sorbara, Lougheed and Wynne that Thibeault would be the candidate, based on the premier’s power to name candidates under the Liberal constitution.
“I thought there was still going to be a (nomination) process,” Olivier said Friday. “In my conversation with the premier I didn’t feel there was a concrete decision.”
In the byelection — which was won by Thibeault, now Wynne’s energy minister — Olivier ran as an independent and placed third.
He said he was relieved after finishing his testimony Friday.
“Everybody in that room understands the gravity of what’s going on,” Olivier told reporters in the courthouse lobby.
If convicted, Sorbara and Lougheed, a funeral homeowner, face maximum penalties of $25,000 fines and two years less a day in jail.
The trial resumes Monday.