A story in the Toronto Star reports on legislative committee hearings into the government’s controversial, costly and politically motivated decision to cancel two power plant projects in the run up to the last provincial election.  In response to heated opposition claims of a cover up, the former premier’s chief of staff testified under oath and denied deleting any records relevant to the government’s controversial cancellation decision:

Testifying under oath to MPPs probing the cancellations of two power plants before the 2011 election to save five Liberal seats, Chris Morley said he has no additional documents or notes on the decisions that have dogged the minority Liberal administration.

Morley set out to challenge what he called “inaccuracies” surrounding the rules for deleting documents, a subject under the spotlight since a scathing report two weeks ago from Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian found some senior political staffers were illegally destroying documents.

The story notes that the IPC report has “led to an OPP investigation into any potential criminal activity in missing emails” but states that the former chief of staff is not specifically named in that report.  Opposition parties have, however, questioned the credibility of Morley’s claims of having no written records relating that controversial decision.
R. Ferguson, “Ontario Power Plant Cancellations: Many reasons to delete documents, says former McGuinty chief of staff,” Toronto Star, June 18th, 2013.