If Premier Kathleen Wynne thinks she has put the Sudbury byelection scandal behind her, she is sadly mistaken.

While her deputy chief of staff, Pat Sorbara, was cleared by police this week of criminal wrongdoing in events surrounding the Feb. 5 byelection, officers did lay bribery charges against a top Liberal organizer in the riding, Gerry Lougheed. And there may be more bad news to come.

That’s because a separate Ontario Provincial Police investigation into whether Sorbara and Lougheed violated the provincial Elections Act is still ongoing.

And that’s why Wynne should do now what she has failed to do for months: tell Sorbara to step aside until this whole mess is cleared up.

The Elections Act investigation, while not criminal, is serious and it will continue to cast a shadow over the premier’s office until it is completed.

It began last February after Greg Essensa, the province’s respected chief electoral officer, announced that he had found the Liberal duo were in “apparent contravention” of the anti-bribery provisions in the province’s election law and reported his findings to police.

Wynne should have asked Sorbara to step aside then. She didn’t, insisting instead that any discussions Sorbara had with the party’s former candidate in Sudbury, Andrew Olivier, about a possible position for him were not improper

But now that police have laid bribery charges against Lougheed, there is even more reason for Wynne to do the right thing and ask Sorbara to step down until the second OPP investigation is completed.

The affair erupted last December when the Liberals asked Olivier to step aside because they thought the federal MP in the area, Glenn Thibeault, would have a better chance of winning the seat. In fact, Thibeault did win the vote on Feb. 5 after switching from the NDP to the Liberals.

But it was how they made the request to Olivier that raised questions with the OPP and Essensa. In documents prepared by the OPP for the original criminal investigation, police alleged Sorbara and Lougheed tried to bribe Olivier by invoking “the authority of the premier” to back up job offers to induce him to step aside.

In one exchange taped and made public by Olivier, Lougheed says that Wynne and Sorbara “would like to present options in terms of appointments, jobs, whatever. . .”

Whether Lougheed’s actions were criminal remains to be seen. He will appear in Sudbury court on Nov. 18 and says he will “be vigorously defending” the charges against him.

Still, the Elections Act investigation is still active. Nothing has been proven, but the impression left by the taped conversations and the concerns expressed by Essensa are deeply troubling. Sorbara should step down from her position in the premier’s office until this matter is cleared up.

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