Five days after Doug Ford’s government announced that Jim Wilson was leaving cabinet and the PC caucus to seek treatment for addiction issues, the premier finally spoke the truth.

The veteran minister left because of allegations about sexual misconduct, and Ford took pains to be crystal clear on Wednesday that he acted decisively within hours of learning about it and that he was deeply committed to ensuring a safe working environment for staff.

That’s all to his credit and something plenty of other organizations could learn from. But Ford’s decision to try and mislead the public over why the veteran minister was leaving the cabinet in the first place is another matter entirely, and it’s worrisome that he still doesn’t see that.

The government maintained its “public story” about addiction through Friday’s announcement and Monday’s cabinet shuffle, while party insiders told media outlets the “real story” about the misconduct allegations. A government committed to transparency has only one story.

Perhaps Ford thought he could keep the real story under wraps, or he really did believe, as he suggested Wednesday, that he had to keep the truth from the public to protect the identity of the complainants. Either way, he was wrong.

The PC staffers who lodged sexual misconduct complaints against Wilson and an unrelated case against Andrew Kimber, a top adviser in Ford’s office who was also shown the door on Friday, certainly should be granted anonymity. But that does not require the premier to feed the public a misleading story about why his most senior minister stepped down.

This incident has shown that Ford’s government takes sexual misconduct allegations seriously and is prepared to move very quickly. But it has not demonstrated that the government believes in being straightforward with Ontarians.

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