TORONTO

Former premier Dalton McGuinty denied Friday that he knew senior Liberal staffers deleted e-mails about his government’s gas plant scandal.

Ontario’s Privacy and Information Commissioner Dr. Ann Cavoukian issued a scathing report this week that found staff in McGuinty’s office and his energy minister broke the law by deliberately deleting e-mails and electronic records surrounding the decision to cancel the Mississauga and Oakville gas plants during the 2011 election.

Opposition parties are calling the e-mail revelations a “cover up.”

However, McGuinty blamed the actions of staff on poor training.

“I was unaware of discussions between government staff and the Ontario Public Service regarding the deletion of documents,” he said in a written statement. “And at no time did I condone or direct the deletion of e-mails or documents which ought to have been preserved.”

Cavoukian slammed the document destruction in her report Wednesday, saying it was hard to believe it was anything but an attempt to avoid transparency and accountability by senior Ontario Liberal staffers.

Cavoukian’s damning investigation uncovered McGuinty’s chief of staff approached the province’s top bureaucrat in January asking how to wipe out his e-mails, and that he and the energy minister’s chief of staff did just that before leaving their positions.

The commissioner found that the actions violated the 2006 Archives and Recordkeeping Act (ARA) and the Premier’s Office Records Retention Schedule.

A government committee probing the McGuinty government’s cancellation of the Mississauga and Oakville gas plants, at a cost of at least $585 million, had officially requested the records.

Earlier Friday, OPP Commissioner Chris Lewis confirmed his officers are launching a criminal investigation into the destruction of e-mails.

The OPP will probe the “alleged impropriety on the part of individuals in the former premier’s office and other offices,” Lewis said in a letter, responding to a request from Progressive Conservative MPPs Vic Fedeli and Rob Leone.

PC MPP Monte McNaughton said Liberal government political staff “stole” taxpayer documents, placing their e-mails on portable devices and then illegally deleting the records from their computers.

“Whoever covered this up, quite frankly, should go to jail,” McNaughton said.

NDP MPP Peter Tabuns said he wants to recall McGuinty and several chiefs of staff to the gas plant committee.

Premier Kathleen Wynne should demand McGuinty return to committee if he refuses to do so willingly, Tabuns said.

“Dalton McGuinty is a sitting MPP and a member of the Liberal caucus. He needs to come forward, start answering questions and if he doesn’t, the premier needs to take action,” he said.

Wynne has said that she cannot provide any information on why the e-mails were deleted.

In his statement, McGuinty said he was pleased that Wynne has agreed to work with Cavoukian to improve staff training, particularly given the high rate of turnover in government employees.