Liberals tried to downplay fallout over gas plants, documents show

Emails recovered by police on seized computers from the McGuinty premier’s office expose feverish — and sometimes comical — damage control efforts by Liberals scrambling to contain fallout from the gas plants scandal.

In the summer and fall of 2012, top officials to then-premier Dalton McGuinty were trying to downplay opposition estimates of the cost to axe power plants in Mississauga and Oakville before the 2011 election.

The emails, revealed in a 131-page OPP search warrant application, are peppered with the lingo of professional spin doctors.

One missive from former McGuinty deputy chief of staff Laura Miller centres on the hotly disputed cancellation costs that would later balloon from the $180 million first floated by the minority Liberal government.

“We . . . need to pivot to the fact that the opposition said it would cost a billion to settle at the time,” Miller wrote to several colleagues on July 11, 2012, three months before McGuinty announced his pending resignation and suspended the legislature mired in an uproar over the scandal.

Ironically, 14 months later, auditor general Bonnie Lysyk put the costs of cancelling the two plants and relocating them to Napanee and Sarnia at up to $1.1 billion over 20 years.

Looking for after-the-fact justifications for cancelling the Mississauga gas plant in the dying days of the election campaign, senior Liberal political staff exchanged a flurry of emails regarding the cancellation of the Mississauga gas plant.

There were questions as to whether the government had any standards on how far power plants should be located from residential areas.

“My only concern about using the setback numbers is it appears (the Ministry of) Energy can’t get any numbers right. EVER,” Leon Korbee, a former TV reporter who now serves as a senior adviser to Premier Kathleen Wynne, wrote to Miller and other colleagues on July 16, 2012.

Former McGuinty communications director Wendy McCann, a veteran Canadian Press reporter, also cautioned against using any setback numbers at all.

“If we are only now reviewing minimum standards it would not sound plausible to offer them up . . . . It sounds like an excuse, and it will trip us up with a (press) gallery already poking holes in the estimated cost.”

She added: “Introducing a new reason now will make us sound like we are slipping and sliding.”

It was agreed that then-energy minister Chris Bentley would say the government knew there would be costs associated with closing the plant across from Sherway Gardens but was acting in the best interests of area residents who opposed it.

“It’s strong . . . he just has to own it. They (reporters) will try to push him over, but he has to plant his feet,” replied Neala Barton, then a press secretary to McGuinty and now a senior communications executive with the 2015 Pan Am Games.

Senior Liberals also tried to enlist Oakville plant builder TransCanada Energy in efforts to stonewall opposition demands for the release of documents.

This took place as Bentley faced a contempt of parliament motion over his refusal to release documents on cancellation cost negotiations, which the government insisted would reveal commercially sensitive information.

The effort was spearheaded by former McGuinty chief of staff David Livingston.

“As things move along with respect to the contempt motion re: Oakville, could TransCanada play a role?” Livingston wrote on Aug. 28, 2012.

Two days later, David Phillips in the government House leader’s office suggested TransCanada could write to a legislative committee investigating the closure saying a release of documents “could jeopardize ongoing negotiations and proceedings . . . if you are willing to take a shot.”

He then suggested wording TransCanada could use.

Also Friday, the Progressive Conservatives said the Liberals should reimburse taxpayers for $10,000 police allege was paid to Miller’s boyfriend Peter Faist to wipe hard drives in the premier’s office.

New Democrats urged Wynne to recall the legislature in the first week of January to face questions over the scandal instead of waiting until late February.