ABOVE: Kathleen Wynne is threatening to sue. Tim Hudak says he won’t back down. And Andrea Horwath doesn’t want to hear any of it. Alan Carter wades into the political free-for-all at Queen’s Park to explain what it means for a possible spring election.
TORONTO – An outside tech expert who police allege was given access to 24 computers in the Ontario premier’s office last year had a contract with the Liberal party that was just cancelled on the weekend, Premier Kathleen Wynne confirmed Monday.
Computer expert Peter Faist also had a contract with the Liberal caucus bureau at Queen’s Park, but that ended when former premier Dalton McGuinty left office, Wynne told reporters at an unrelated event in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.
“He did not provide any services to the Liberal caucus services after I came into office,” she said. “He did provide some services to the Liberal party (but) once we discovered that he was part of the issues surrounding the allegations … his services were terminated as of Sunday.”
Provincial police, who are investigating the deletion of government emails related to the Liberals’ cancellation of two gas plants, alleged in court documents that Faist was given the computer access by David Livingston, McGuinty’s former chief of staff.
The court documents, released last Thursday, also allege that Livingston sought access to the government computers to “wipe clean” the computer hard drives. The allegations contained in documents have not been proven in court.
The Progressive Conservatives said Wynne’s admission added weight to their claim that she was in charge early last February when the hard drives were apparently wiped clean, even though she wasn’t officially sworn in as premier until Feb. 11.
“It is very clear that the mastermind behind wiping all those hard drives was, up until these revelations became very public, … (was) somebody who was under the employment of Kathleen Wynne,” said PC critic Lisa MacLeod. “Never in a million years did we expect that he was still on the payroll.”
MacLeod said Faist’s contracts raise more questions about Wynne’s role in the attempted coverup of the Liberals’ decisions to cancel gas plants in Oakville and Mississauga prior to the 2011 election at a cost to taxpayers of up to $1.1 billion.
The Liberals accused the Conservatives of playing “dirty politics” by trying to link Wynne to the latest police allegations.
The government said Faist’s IT company billed the Liberal caucus $159,727.28 between June 2010 and January 2013, and also billed the Liberal Party of Ontario about $60,000 for IT maintenance between March 2011 and last Sunday.
Faist could not be reached for comment Monday.
Wynne sent an open letter Sunday demanding that Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak withdraw allegations that she “possibly ordered the destruction of documents” related to the cancellation of the gas plants. The letter called Hudak’s allegations “false, misleading and defamatory” and demanded he retract them and remove them from the PC party website.
A formal cease and desist letter from Wynne’s lawyer was delivered to Hudak Monday afternoon.
“I will continue to ask that the leader of the Opposition and his caucus refrain from making allegations that are not true, that are unfounded and (from) making accusations that have absolutely no evidence to support them,” said Wynne.
Hudak said earlier in the day that he would “absolutely not” back down, and insisted Wynne was “in charge” as Ontario’s premier-designate during the transition period between premiers when police allege Faist was given the unprecedented access to government computers.
“Either she was directly involved or she was extraordinarily incompetent seeing these things happen right under her nose,” he said. “Kathleen Wynne wants to say she knew nothing that happened before Feb. 11, and that’s just not the case.”
Police say the special administrator’s access given to Faist was valid from Feb. 4 to March 20 last year – a timeline the Tories say underpins their claims.
Information from the court documents shows Faist – who was the boyfriend of Laura Miller, a deputy chief of staff to McGuinty – was given special access to the computer hard drives after Wynne became premier-designate in late January 2013, said Hudak.
“Just like Dalton McGuinty, Kathleen Wynne has sought to prevent the facts about the gas plants scandal from coming to light,” he said. “There are serious allegations of criminal activity in the premier’s office from the OPP anti-rackets squad and that premier was Kathleen Wynne, not Dalton McGuinty.”
Miller now works for the British Columbia Liberals, and B.C. Premier Christie Clark said Monday she wasn’t concerned that Miller was refusing to co-operate with police who are investigating the Ontario premier’s office.
“Well she needs to make her own decisions about that,” said Clark. “She is a person of integrity, and of course you know she is not the target of this investigation.”
Meanwhile, the opposition parties were fuming when Wynne failed to show for question period Monday, prompting the New Democrats to walk out in protest.
Wynne insisted her trip to Sault Ste. Marie had been planned “for weeks” and promised she would be in question period Tuesday.
The Progressive Conservatives had asked the OPP to investigate after the government repeatedly insisted all documents on the gas plants had been turned over to a legislative committee, only to find thousands more documents on several occasions.
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