A report in the Toronto Star stated that the OPP’s anti-rackets squad executed a search warrant in an attempt to retrieve deleted power plant cancellation emails from the government’s external technology service provider:
Ontario Provincial Police have executed a search warrant on a Mississauga data storage company looking for evidence in the probe of deleted power plant emails by staff in the office of former premier Dalton McGuinty. The search, identified by the Ottawa Citizen as taking place at an office of Atlanta, Ga.-based Recall Corporation, comes eight months into the investigation by the OPP’s anti-rackets branch. “There was a search warrant that was executed,” OPP Sgt. Carolle Dionne said Wednesday. “We can’t divulge any details because this is an ongoing investigation.”
While the OPP declined to provide further comment, others were less restrained, with the opposition taking aim at the government over what the Ontario Auditor General previously reported to be over a $1 billion in politically motivated project cancellation costs. The story notes that opposition critics “said the warrant shows the investigation is narrowing after the premier’s office was visited by detectives last year when Premier Kathleen Wynne took power following McGuinty’s resignation.”
R. Ferguson and R. Benzie, “OPP search data storage firm in probe of deleted power plant emails,” Toronto Star, February 19, 2014.
In a related story reported by the Canadian Press, Warren “Smokey” Thomas, head of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, used the ongoing power plant scandal as a leverage point to push back on Premier Wynne’s assertions that a lack of government funds will require further employee concessions on pension benefits:
‘I’ve got two words for you sister: every time you say we’ve got no money, I’m going to say ‘power plants’,” he said. “My point in this is that they have the money for the things they want.”
The “friendly fire” from OPSEU against what many on the right perceive to be a union-friendly Liberal government did not prevent the Conservative opposition from accusing the Liberals of being soft on unions. As a future cost-saving measure, the Conservatives called on support for their private member’s bill that would force union employees to compete against private sector bidders to perform government services.
