TORONTO

The word “candidate” is from the Latin for white.

A candidate for public office in Ancient Rome wore a “toga candida” — a white toga.

After Criminal Code charges were laid by the OPP anti-rackets squad in the Sudbury byelection scandal Thursday, perhaps we should rename those running for office here as sordidates — sordida being Latin for dirty or dark.

Senior Liberal operative Gerry Lougheed Jr. was charged with influencing or negotiating appointments and counselling an offence not committed after an eight-month probe into the byelection scandal.

The OPP will now investigate allegations the Elections Act was also breached. In February, Elections Ontario CEO Greg Essensa issued an unprecedented report alleging contraventions of the act.

“No chief electoral officer of Ontario has ever conducted a regulatory investigation into allegations of bribery or ever reported an apparent contravention of the home statutes of my office to the attorney general,” Essensa said in his report.

At that time, Essensa said he believes two Liberal operatives — Pat Sorbara, Wynne’s deputy chief of staff, and Lougheed — contravened the Elections Act by offering former candidate Andrew Olivier an inducement to step aside in the nomination for the Sudbury byelection to make way for a star candidate. The Liberals had quietly wooed federal New Democrat Glenn Thibeault to run for them.

To hear the gleeful crowing of Treasury Board chair and deputy premier Deb Matthews in the legislature Thursday, you wouldn’t believe a senior party organizer was facing charges.

New Democrat Gilles Bisson asked tough questions about who told Lougheed to phone Olivier.

Matthews mocked Bisson, calling him “Inspector Clouseau.”

That’s how arrogant it got. Liberals were gloating that Sorbara wasn’t charged.

No remorse. No embarrassment for this stain on their party.

Make no mistake. These are serious charges. Take a look at the fuss federally over the robo-caller — a low-level, overly enthusiastic campaign worker who sent voters to the wrong voting station. He was sentenced to nine months in jail and an additional 12 months of probation.

Former Peterborough MP Dean Del Mastro was sentenced to a month in jail and four months house arrest for overpaying $21,000 of his own money to his campaign and trying to cover it up.

Lougheed is a senior Liberal. Until the charges were laid, he was on the Sudbury police services board. So unless we judge federal Conservatives by a different yardstick than provincial Liberals, this spells big trouble for Wynne and her government.

PC Leader Patrick Brown called on Wynne and Sorbara to step aside.

“I hope the government will do the right thing, given that the OPP has laid charges, and recognize that a significant and allegedly criminal wrong has been committed,” he told reporters.

There are unanswered questions. Anyone listening to the recordings of Olivier talking to Lougheed and Sorbara, asks yourselves one question: Was Lougheed working alone — as a rogue agent? Or was he speaking on behalf of the premier?

Until a court of law gives us the answer, the premier’s office and Liberal Party are under a dark cloud.

This is just one of three OPP anti-rackets inquiries with relation to the Liberals. We’re awaiting the outcome of the deleted e-mails scandal, where senior staff in former premier Dalton McGuinty’s office deleted thousands of e-mails in an alleged attempt to cover up the gas plant scandal. And the Ornge air ambulance probe continues.

The irony is Thibeault is well-liked in Sudbury and likely would have won both the nomination and election on his own. It was Wynne’s overly-competitive attitude that got the Liberals into trouble.

For now, though, the Liberals are fiddling while the province burns. Their attitude is one of “move-along, nothing to see here.”

Then again, if you go back to Ancient Rome you’ll find Brutus was also an honourable man — until he stabbed Julius Caesar in the back. Then again, that’s politics.

christina.blizzard@sunmedia.ca