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The acquittal of a second-tier aide to current Premier Kathleen Wynne will probably hurt the Ontario Liberals a lot more than the criminal conviction of her predecessor’s chief of staff.

The news came in one-two punches at the end of last week. Thursday night, Patricia Sorbara left the Liberal campaign team she once headed, just about five months before the next election. It was also four months after a judge dismissed charges she and local party powerbroker Gerry Lougheed tried to bribe a Liberal candidate out of a byelection in Sudbury.

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Sorbara is the type to stay out of the spotlight but she’s credited with imposing discipline on a party organization that really needed it, reeling after falling to minority status then losing byelection after byelection. She’s, to put it generously, not a pushover. In government, Wynne made Sorbara a deputy chief of staff in her office.

The official explanation for putting her off the campaign is that while Sorbara was awaiting her eventual acquittal, the party just kind of moved on without her.