Opposition leaders are calling on Premier Kathleen Wynne to take action against two key Liberals after the chief electoral officer of Ontario ruled there was an apparent contravention of the Elections Act in conversations the two had with a thwarted Liberal candidate.

Greg Essensa lit a fire at Queen’s Park when he released a report Thursday in which he said no chief electoral officer had ever conducted a regulatory investigation into allegations of bribery or reported an apparent contravention to the Ministry of the Attorney General.

He did both after receiving complaints from Timmins-James Bay New Democrat MPP Gilles Bisson and Leeds-Grenville Progressive Conservative MPP Steve Clark based on allegations by Andrew Olivier of Sudbury.

Olivier had run for the Liberals in the June general election, losing to New Democrat Joe Cimino by 966 votes. Cimino quit as MPP less than six months later.

Olivier had signalled his intention to seek the Liberal nomination in a byelection, but Wynne and two high-ranking Liberals had other ideas.

Wynne, Gerry Lougheed Jr. and Pat Sorbara, Wynne’s deputy chief of staff, all spoke with Olivier, asking him to step aside so Wynne could appoint defecting Sudbury NDP MP Glenn Thibeault to run for the Liberals.

Olivier went public in December about those conversations, saying Liberal "king-maker" Lougheed and Sorbara had offered him a job or appointment not to seek the nomination.

Clark immediately complained to Ontario Provincial Police, and Bisson seconded that. The OPP anti-rackets squad investigated initially, but dropped the matter.

On Jan. 16, Olivier released recordings of his conversations with Lougheed and Sorbara on Facebook, prompting the OPP to reopen its investigation. Police later went through the courts to get Olivier to give them the originals of those recordings and other related material.

Wynne, Lougheed and Sorbara have all insisted they did nothing wrong in speaking with Olivier, and none of the allegations have been proven in court.

Despite pressure from PC House Leader Clark and NDP Leader Andrea Horwath on Thursday, Wynne indicated she had no intention of suspending Sorbara.

Wynne said her aide would continue to co-operate fully with Elections Ontario as its investigation moves to the next phase.

Both opposition MPPs also want Lougheed removed as chair of Greater Sudbury Police Services Board.

Greater Sudbury Police Services Board issued a statement two weeks ago saying it supported Lougheed remaining as chair.

Essensa said Elections Ontario has no mandate to conduct prosecutions. Protocol dictates the assistant deputy attorney general of the criminal law division of the Ministry of the Attorney General decide whether to refer the matter to the OPP. It is up to police to decide whether to lay charges in consultation with the Crown, which would then prosecute.

But Scott and Horwath want none of that. Horwath is demanding Wynne appoint an independent, out-of-province prosecutor to investigate the findings from Elections Ontario, and to lay charges and prosecute them should it come to that.

"For there to be justice done, there has to be a perception that justice is being done," said Horwath in a telephone interview from Queen’s Park.

"There can’t be a perception of bias in these proceedings because then that undermines the faith, the truth that people have in the justice system."

Clark said his party is calling for Wynne to "come clean" in three ways. It wants her to state whether Lougheed and Sorbara were acting on her behalf when they talked with Olivier about stepping aside.

After Olivier released the recordings in January, Wynne quickly issued a news release stating Lougheed was not a member of government, nor did he represent her. In his face-to-face conversation with Olivier, captured on a recording, Lougheed said he was there on behalf of the premier.

Progressive Conservatives want Lougheed and Sorbara suspended pending investigations and an independent prosecutor brought in because of the nature of the allegations.

Horwath called it shocking that Liberals are pretending the so-called Sudbury scandal isn’t an important issue; "that somehow this (chief electoral officer) report exonerates them."

She called it an arrogant and disrespectful way to treat the people of Sudbury and Ontarians generally.

Horwath slammed deputy premier Deb Matthews for saying in a scrum with reporters that the kind of conversations Wynne, Sorbara and Lougheed had with Olivier go on all the time.

"If the Liberals are doing it, they need to come clean on exactly who they’ve been bribing all these years," said Horwath.

Essensa said in his statement that he concluded Lougheed and Sorbara contravened a section of the act concerning bribery, namely inducing a person to become, refrain from becoming or withdrawing from being a candidate.

Former Liberal candidate Olivier intended to seek the party nomination in the byelection until he was asked to step aside. Wynne had decided to appoint former Sudbury New Democrat MP Glenn Thibeault to run for the Liberals in that race.

Thibeault won the byelection, in which Olivier ran as an independent placing third behind New Democrat Suzanne Shawbonquit.

Wynne said she called Olivier in December to ask him to remain involved in the Liberal Party and tell him about Thibeault. Olivier recorded his conversations with Sorbara and Lougheed, but not with Wynne. A quadriplegic, Olivier routinely records meetings and conversations because it is difficult to take notes.

Essensa said investigations by his agency are regulatory in nature, not criminal investigations. Offences set out in the Election Act and the Elections Finance Act are prosecuted under the Provincial Offences Act.

"To be clear, they are not Criminal Code offences," Essensa said in his statement.

His powers to investigate and report are set out in the Election Act. He must be satisfied, based on evidence obtained in the investigation, that there are sufficient facts that, if found to be true, would constitute a contravention of the Election Act or the Election Finances Act.

Essensa said he would have to be satisfied there is more than simply a "fair probability" there has been a contravention before concluding any possible contravention has reached the threshold of being "apparent".

"In light of the ongoing separate criminal investigation and my desire to ensure my report does not interfere with it or any other investigation, I’ve had to balance the public interest of transparency against the need to ensure the legal processes under way are not duly hindered," Essensa said in his statement.

Ontario Provincial Police’s anti-rackets squad is investigating Olivier’s allegations, as a result of Clark’s complaint, to determine if any criminal actions were taken by Sorbara or Lougheed when they asked Olivier to withdraw as prospective byelection candidate.

carol.mulligan@sunmedia.ca

Full statement from Elections Ontario