What on earth is going on with the investigation into allegations of bribery in the Sudbury byelection earlier this year?

More than seven months after the vote, way back on Feb. 5, the investigation by Ontario Provincial Police into potential wrong-doing by Premier Kathleen Wynne’s chief of staff and a senior Liberal organizer in the riding is reportedly “stalled.”

Worse, Ontarians are left pondering statements from OPP Commissioner Vince Hawkes that only raise more questions about why this politically charged case has yet to be resolved. Hawkes told the Star this week that his investigators have done an “exceptional job.” But, he said, “because of a pile of stuff that is going there I am obviously frustrated with the progress.”

A “pile of stuff”? We and everyone else are left to speculate on what exactly the commissioner had in mind. The obvious conclusion is that things have ground to a halt because of the tangled political interests involved. Is someone, somewhere exerting influence to slow things down? Or are investigators and prosecutors treading so carefully that they are unable to proceed?

We don’t know. But we do know that an air of possible criminality lingers, ever since the head of Elections Ontario, Greg Essensa, reported in February that he didn’t like what he had learned about what the two senior Liberals had been up to in the lead-up to the byelection. Essensa said at the time that “it is my opinion” that their actions “constitute an apparent contravention” of anti-bribery provisions in the province’s election law.

Coming from the respected leader of the agency charged with ensuring the integrity of the province’s elections, that is an ominous observation.

To recap briefly: last fall the Liberals pushed aside a would-be candidate in Sudbury, Andrew Olivier, because they thought the federal MP in the area, Glenn Thibeault, would have a better chance of winning the provincial seat. In fact, Thibeault did win the byelection on Feb. 5.

That might have been the end of it, but Olivier had secretly taped Pat Sorbara, Wynne’s chief of staff, and local party organizer Gerry Lougheed as they tried to persuade him to step aside quietly.

Lougheed told Olivier that the premier and Sorbara would like to “present you options in terms of appointments, jobs, whatever” if he made way for Thibeault. Sorbara was taped promising Olivier a discussion about what he’d like to do, “whether it’s a full-time or part-time job… whether it is appointments, supports or commissions….” And so on.

Those facts don’t appear to be in dispute, and they certainly weren’t hard to find. Olivier made recordings of the conversations public last winter as he defiantly said “I will not be bought.” The issue for investigators is whether what the Liberal operatives did crosses the line from routine political skullduggery into outright criminality.

They have now had almost eight months to figure that out, and it’s high time to clear the air. The puzzling, and troubling, words of OPP Commissioner Hawkes to reporters from the Star’s Queen’s Park bureau make it even more urgent for the public to see this matter resolved. If he is truly “frustrated” with how long it is taking to get to the bottom of the affair, that is hardly reassuring for anyone who cares about honesty in public life.

According to another report this week, the OPP investigation is complete and prosecutors are now weighing whether to lay charges. The authorities should lose no time in coming to a decision and bringing this chapter to a close – one way or the other.