Liberals are using their majority clout to keep secret the financial records on the money-losing MaRS office tower.

Grit MPPs at the legislature’s estimate committee Tuesday blocked all attempts by opposition members to shine a light on financial dealings connected to the more than two-thirds empty 20-storey building.

Progressive Conservative MPP Randy Hillier asked Infrastructure Minister Brad Duguid to supply, among other things, a business case that led to the Liberal government loaning MaRS $224 million to build the tower.

“What you are asking me right now to respond to is information that I do not know exists,” the minister said.

Duguid, who emphasized he wasn’t even minister in 2010 when the MaRS deal was done, then said he would supply the business case filed with Infrastructure Ontario — but only if one exists and only if it is not commercially sensitive.

Infrastructure Ontario later confirmed to the Star that one does exist, but was quick to put a stop to it being released.

“The decision-making behind the loan program is commercially sensitive as it contains various third-party due diligence, applicant financials, and project specific business cases that would compromise the integrity of the loan process,” spokesperson Bianca Lankheit said in an email statement.

Lankheit stated the loan application for MaRS Phase 2 went through rigorous checks and balances.

“Even though they (Liberals) talk a good talk about openness and transparency, we are not seeing anything about transparency, anything about openness and they are preventing the public from seeing how the minister is spending their money,” Hillier (Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington) told the committee.

The Liberal MPPs argued the information requested either contained commercially sensitive information or claimed the research and innovation minister should provide the details even though Infrastructure Ontario lent MaRS the money.

Hillier said the Liberal roadblocks only prove the government is willing to go to great lengths to prevent the public from getting to the bottom of the MaRS financial debacle.

In January, MaRS told the province it could no longer make payments on the $224-million loan, leaving taxpayers holding the bag to the tune of $450,000 a month in interest payments.

On top of the outstanding loan, the government last month bought out the U.S.-based developer Alexandria Real Estate, to the tune of $65 million, bringing the total bailout to $309 million.

“I support openness and transparency but at the right time,” Liberal MPP Han Dong (Trinity-Spadina) told the committee.

NDP MPP Percy Hatfield (Windsor-Tecumseh) argued at the committee that “we are just trying to get to the bottom of whether this was a good deal.

“We want to know if indeed what was put into this project was in the interest of the taxpayer,” Hatfield said.

Other details requested by Hillier and denied included a copy of the MaRS mortgage agreement and a copy of the $65-million purchase agreement by MaRS and Alexandria Real Estate.

Hillier noted the Tory committee members even agreed to deal with his requests behind closed doors in the event anything was commercially sensitive but still the Liberals said no.

Confidential cabinet documents leaked to the media during the spring provincial election showed the Liberals were proposing to purchase the MaRS Phase 2 tower as early as April.

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The documents, comprising a confidential report to the cabinet secretary and a ministerial proposal to the Treasury Board, detail how MaRS was unable to repay the loan it received from Infrastructure Ontario and that the government was considering acquiring the building.

Hillier told reporters he’s convinced the government is going to fill the office tower — just over 30 per cent leases — with bureaucrats with further cost to the taxpayers.

Meanwhile, Duguid did provide a one-page opinion from Ernst and Young on the estimated value of the building, which he acknowledged he incorrectly described previously as a report.