Missing hard drives uncovered during an audit of the Pan Am Games have triggered an investigation by Ontario’s information and privacy commissioner and prompted an opposition MPP to ask police to get involved.

In a statement, commissioner Brian Beamish said the probe was sparked by the auditor general’s report Wednesday that noted the inability to obtain computer hard drives.

“My office will be investigating to determine whether TO2015 followed appropriate record-keeping and record-retention practices. The investigation report will be made public when it is completed,” Beamish said Thursday.

Bonnie Lysyk revealed in her report that TO2015 did not hand over all the computer hard drives investigators requested at the outset of the audit, including that of the CEO, Saad Rafi.

Of the 12 hard drives requested, the Games organizing committee, known as TO2015, supplied only three to the auditors, Lysyk later said. (It was not stated in the report to whom the other hard drives belonged.) A consultants’ report on the rationale for bonuses was also unavailable.

NDP MPP Paul Miller (Hamilton East-Stoney Creek) penned a letter to the Ontario Provincial Police commissioner Thursday calling on the force to investigate what he called a potential obstruction of the auditor’s office and the potential of criminal mischief.

“This goes on and on and on,” Miller said in an interview, citing the gas plant scandal, eHealth and Ornge. “The Liberals are well-known for these types of dilemmas and scandals and this is just another example of a poorly handled situation.”

OPP Sgt. Peter Leon said he was not aware of the request to the commissioner’s office.

“Should such a request be received, obviously it would have to be looked at to determine whether an investigation is warranted.”

MPP Steve Clark (Leeds-Grenville) had called for Beamish to investigate in an open letter released earlier Thursday.

“This government’s shameful history of using the shredder and ‘delete’ key to destroy public documents is well-known,” Clark said during question period.

In the house, Clark also called for the dismissal of Rafi from his current role as CEO of the Ontario Retirement Pension Plan.

Rafi did not respond to a request for comment on the matter.

Though the probability that auditors missed something is low, Lysyk said, the absence of information warranted mention.

“Their view would be, the information is in the cloud. Our perspective would be, we would prefer to have had the hard drive,” she told the Star on Wednesday.

“Because there’s choices as to what you put in the cloud.”

Rafi said in an email Wednesday that TO2015 took record retention “very seriously” and all relevant files were stored in the shared servers, along with emails.

When asked again on Thursday why his hard drive was not kept after the auditor had requested it, he did not respond.

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The ministry of government and consumer services, responsible for Archives Ontario, said in a statement the archives worked with TO2015 on its records series policy.

“It is our expectation that staff of TO2015 would manage and save their records in accordance with the requirements of the records series,” it said.

Before news of the IPC investigation, Michael Coteau, the minister of tourism, culture and sport responsible for the Games, said TO2015 kept information on shared servers and followed record-keeping procedures.

“It’s our job to make sure that those rules are followed. The auditor general has clearly stated the rules have been followed and the process took place and there was no wrongdoing done,” he said.

He could not be reached for comment on the investigation before press time.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath supported the call for a privacy commission investigation.

“You have to wonder,” she said when asked whether the rules and processes currently in place are effective. “I would say that they are not but we have to get information from the information and privacy commissioner in terms of this particular case.”

When asked for his response to Clark’s call in the house for Rafi’s dismissal, Coteau told reporters Rafi “did a great job.”

“It was a very complex operation they’re running,” he said. “I was quite happy with the entire process.”

Fifty-three senior staff were paid $5.3 million in bonuses at the end of the Games for finishing their contracts and meeting the government’s budget targets, despite the auditor general finding the Games had cost overruns of $304 million. Those senior staff payments came in addition to annual performance bonuses of $10.5 million.

Rafi reportedly declined a $438,000 bonus when he took his new post.