Facing more heat over the hiring of his longtime friend Ron Taverner to head the OPP, Premier Doug Ford skipped question period in the legislature for the third straight day Thursday as opposition parties continued to question the controversial appointment.

The premier’s staff and at least two cabinet ministers said his week was booked solid with meetings and events because the legislature was supposed to be on a break, but that didn’t wash with rivals seeking answers.

“It’s shameful this premier doesn’t have the courage to stand in his place and take the questions from the opposition that are being put on behalf of the people to try to get to the bottom of his behaviour,” said New Democrat Leader Andrea Horwath.

“If he’s running away, ducking and covering, from the scrutiny of the official opposition ... it begs the question, what’s he hiding from? What doesn’t he want the people to know?” she added as MPPs headed home for the holiday season after being called back Monday to pass legislation preventing a strike at Ontario Power Generation.

“The people of Ontario need to have confidence in police and in the integrity of government.”

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Community Safety Minister Sylvia Jones said the continued pressure reminded her of the movie Groundhog Day as the government awaits the results of an investigation by provincial integrity commissioner J. David Wake into whether Ford played a role in the Taverner hiring, a potential violation of the Members Integrity Act.

She would not commit to following Wake’s recommendations.

“I’m not going to presuppose what his findings are. I don’t want to play the speculation game,” Jones told reporters just moments before going on to contradict herself.

“I believe that he will find the process was perfectly appropriate, very standard, and we’ll move on from there.”

Jones insisted the process that resulted in the job offer accepted by Taverner, a veteran Toronto police superintendent, was “the same used in every previous OPP commissioner hiring.”

However, critics pointed out that qualifications for the job leading Canada’s second-largest police force were lowered two days after the job was first posted, allowing Taverner to apply. Jones said that call was made by an executive search firm contracted to assist in the hiring.

Horwath said Ford’s responses to Wake will be confidential and that a full public inquiry is the best way to shed light on the hiring.

“This is why we are asking the integrity commissioner to kick this up a notch,” she said.

Interim Liberal Leader John Fraser filed an affidavit to Wake, asking for an opinion under section 30 of the Members Integrity Act as to whether the premier “used his office to seek to influence a decision made by the person or persons responsible for the process” to hire a new OPP boss.

Fraser asked that Wake specifically look into how the qualifications for the job were lowered and whether Ford “failed to disclose a conflict of interest and failed to withdraw” from a cabinet meeting where the Taverner appointment was approved.

“There should be no conflict of interest or even an appearance of conflict of interest involving the premier and the OPP commissioner’s appointment,” he said.

Fraser also hand-delivered a letter to Attorney General Caroline Mulroney in the legislature asking her to appoint an “independent investigator” into the Taverner hiring, saying the scope of the integrity commissioner’s probe is too narrow.

“If she doesn’t do that, we’re not really ever, ever going to know and that will be a problem for the OPP, it’ll be a problem for the people of Ontario, and quite frankly, it will be a problem for Mr. Taverner because there will always be an appearance of conflict,” Fraser said after question period.

“Legislation limits the power of the integrity commissioner to investigate political staff like Mr. French and publicly disclose the findings,” he noted, referring to Ford’s chief of staff, Dean French.

Taverner has returned to his Toronto police job heading three northwestern divisions after asking last weekend for his OPP appointment to be “postponed” until Wake’s probe is completed.

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Former RCMP commissioner Bob Paulson, among others, has warned Taverner is too closely linked to Ford to effectively lead the OPP, particularly if the force has to investigate the government — as happened under a previous Liberal regime with the scandal over deleted documents related to the closing of two gas plants before the 2011 election.

That probe led to criminal charges and a conviction of former premier Dalton McGuinty’s chief of staff, David Livingston, who was sentenced to four months in jail. He is free on his own recognizance pending an appeal. McGuinty was not a subject of that investigation and co-operated with police.

Taverner has not replied to repeated requests for comment from the Star.

Robert Benzie is the Star’s Queen’s Park bureau chief and a reporter covering Ontario politics. Follow him on Twitter: @robertbenzie

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