Ontario's information and privacy commissioner says he will investigate whether the Toronto-based organizing committee of the 2015 Pan Am and Parapan Am Games properly kept and retained records.

Brian Beamish said he has reviewed Ontario Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk's report on the games, released this week, and taken note of her comments under the report's "Scope Limitation" section. In that section, she said she was unable to examine many computer hard drives disposed of by the committee, including those of CEO Saad Rafi.

"In light of these comments, my office will be investigating to determine whether TO2015 followed appropriate record keeping and record retention practices," Beamish said.

Beamish said the report from his investigation will be made public when completed.

The auditor general said in the report: "We were unable to obtain answers to certain questions and could not obtain some documents we requested. We also were not able to obtain many computer hard drives that were disposed of by TO2015, including the CEO's."

Lysyk said the games also came in $342 million over budget. She also said, despite the cost overruns, the province still paid more than $5 million in performance bonuses.

In question period at the Legislature on Thursday, NDP and Progressive Conservative MPPs asked Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne and Ontario Tourism, Culture and Sport Minister Michael Coteau about the missing hard drives.

NDP MPP Paul Miller, who represents Hamilton East-Stoney Creek, said the auditor general requested 12 hard drives from the committee but received only three. "The rest were wiped and disposed of, including the CEO's."

Miller said some of the missing documents, requested by the auditor general, contained information about executive bonuses.

The TO2015 organizing committee had agreed to pay $5.3 million to 53 senior employees — in addition to $10.5 million they received in annual bonuses — if they stayed until the end of their contracts and the net operating and capital budgets were met.

Full bonuses were paid, even though organizers asked the province for — and received — a $74-million increase in the net operating budget.

Conservative MPP Steve Clark, who represents the eastern Ontario riding of Leeds-Grenville, accused the government of failing to be open about provincial spending on the games.

"Destroying hard drives before the Auditor General sees what's on them is evidence again of their outright contempt for transparency. Can't manage, not in it for you, can't be trusted," he said.

Coteau denied the accusation. "These were the most transparent games ever," he said.

"We held five technical briefings and TO2015 has assured us that they followed all record retention requirements by Archives Ontario, and the auditor general confirmed that by saying TO2015 followed the procedures that were provided by the archives. In fact, yesterday the auditor general reassured us that she doesn't have any indication that there was anything improper done," he said.

"The auditor general was granted full access to the shared computer system where all the information files, including emails, were uploaded and stored."