‘He hadn’t been a great candidate,’ Wynne testifies
Sudbury byelection bribery trial hears premier say she didn’t have confidence in Andrew Olivier
SUDBURY— Premier Kathleen Wynne says a would-be byelection candidate simply wasn’t up to the job — and was offered a chance to get more involved in the party in an effort to let him down easy.
The details came in her long-awaited testimony to the Election Act bribery trial of the premier’s former deputy chief of staff, Patricia Sorbara, and Sudbury Liberal organizer Gerry Lougheed. Sorbara and Lougheed have pleaded not guilty.
The pair are charged with offering Andrew Olivier, a mortgage broker and the party’s 2014 provincial election candidate, jobs or appointments to abandon his efforts to become the Liberal nominee in an unexpected byelection early the following year.
“I didn’t say this to him . . . he hadn’t been a great candidate,” said Wynne, the first Ontario premier in recent memory to testify at a trial that opposition parties are calling a test of Liberal “corruption” with a provincial election looming next June.
Wynne strode past a phalanx of reporters, TV cameras and radio microphones on her way into the courthouse, spending almost four hours in the witness box. On her way out of the building, a handful of protesters weakly chanted, “liar, liar, pants on fire.”
“He had not been able to pull the team together . . . there was some concern,” the premier said of Olivier, who placed sec- ond in 2014 as the Liberals won a slim majority but lost Sudbury to the NDP after holding it for 18 years.
Wynne’s preferred candidate for the February 2015 byelection — called after New Democrat MPP Joe Cimino suddenly quit for family reasons — was defecting Sudbury New Democrat MP Glenn Thibeault, now her energy minister.
That’s why Wynne, who was once passed over for a party nomination in 1999, felt it necessary to reach out to Olivier to ask him to support Thibeault and stay involved in the party.
“I thought it was a decent thing to do . . . this was a difficult moment for him,” she said of Olivier, who subsequently released recorded conversations with Lougheed and Sorbara that prosecutors allege were illegal job offers.
The defence has argued that Thibeault had privately agreed to become the candidate before the conversations Olivier had with Sorbara and Lougheed.
Olivier, who is quadriplegic, tapes some calls and conversations because he cannot take notes.
Wynne testified her own conversation with Olivier — which was not recorded — made it clear there was a “process” he could go through to take various positions in the party, such as seeking an elected spot on the executive, serving on volunteer committees or seeking a public appointment.
“These were not things that would happen immediately,” Wynne testified under examination by Crown prosecutor Vern Brewer, describing her phone chat with Olivier on Dec. 11, 2014, as “awkward” because he was not signalling whether he would back Thibeault.
Olivier subsequently ran as an independent in the byelection and placed third behind Thibeault and a New Democrat.
The next call from the Liberal hierarchy to Olivier was by Sorbara, the following day. Lougheed had talked to him an hour or two before Wynne.
“My recollection is Pat was going to follow up with Andrew,” Wynne added.
“Beyond that, there was no instruction.”
On the tape of that conversation, Sorbara said, “we should have the broadest discussion about what it is that you would be most interested in doing, whether it’s a full-time or part-time job in a (constituency) office, whether it is appointments or commissions . . .”
In his talk with Olivier, Lougheed stated: “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.” Under cross-examination by Lougheed lawyer Michael Lacy, Wynne replied “I did not” when asked if she gave “scripts” to Sorbara and Lougheed but said there was a “shared understanding” that the approach was aimed at keeping Olivier involved in the party.
“The words chosen by Mr. Lougheed may not have been perfect words,” Lacy said.
The trial is expected to continue into October.
Sorbara and Lougheed face maximum fines of $25,000 and two years less a day in jail for the alleged infractions, which are under a lesser category of provincial offences and not under the Criminal Code.
Sorbara faces a second count of inducing Thibeault to be the candidate. The Crown says he asked for income replacement through the campaign if he jumped from federal politics to the provincial Liberals and for jobs for two of his NDP constituency office staff.
Wynne testified that Sorbara had a say in how party funds were spent in the byelection.
“My understanding is she would have.”