For Ontario’s opposition parties, the gas plant scandal is the gift that just keeps on giving. It’s now more than three full years since the McGuinty government deep-sixed two plants to please voters in Mississauga and Oakville ahead of the 2011 provincial election, and the stench from that steaming pile won’t go away.

The latest outrage is the allegation late last week that the McGuinty government spent $10,000 in taxpayers’ money for the spouse of the then-premier’s deputy chief of staff to wipe clean computer hard drives in the premier’s office.

Investigators looking into the events surrounding the gas plant cancellations believe the computers may have contained emails detailing the involvement of top McGuinty aides in those decisions. And the opposition accuses the Liberals of arranging for the information to be erased to cover up the rising cost of those decisions – estimated by Ontario’s auditor general at a stomach-churning $1.1 billion.

By comparison, the $10,000 fee allegedly paid to Peter Faist, common law spouse of McGuinty’s one-time deputy chief of staff Laura Miller, is a tiny drop in a very big bucket.

But for taxpayers, it adds insult to injury to find out that (according to a search warrant application prepared by Ontario Provincial Police) they ended up forking out extra cash to the man called in to wipe computers clean of “potential damaging information.”

The money was paid by the Liberal Caucus Service Bureau – a taxpayer-funded office that covers routine expenses of the party caucus at Queen’s Park. The work could have been done by a government employee with the appropriate security clearance. Instead, according to the OPP, the premier’s office brought in a private outside contractor who just happened to be married to one of McGuinty’s most senior aides. The optics are terrible.

The gas plant cancellations and the frantic efforts by the Liberals to contain the fallout both predate Kathleen Wynne’s arrival in the premier’s office. Since then she has promised to be “open and transparent” about the scandal – mostly successfully as her resounding majority victory last June clearly demonstrated.

But she has stumbled on this file. After securing her majority, she quickly had a legislative committee investigating the scandal wrap up its work without hearing from some key witnesses, including Faist and Miller. That did a disservice to voters.

The Liberals can’t turn back the clock on the gas plant fiasco. But they can – and should – avoid rubbing taxpayers’ faces in the mess. They could begin by using party funds to reimburse the public for any money paid to Faist to do away with possible evidence.

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