Kudos to Keith Leslie of the Canadian Press. Now there is a true journalist!
Meanwhile, the crack Globe and Mail team are poring over divorce documents of a "no-name" Rob Ford aide.
And the dynamic duo at the Star of Donovan and Doolittle are waiting like expectant schoolgirls by the phone for the alleged crack cocaine video to magically appear.
Keith Leslie has instead exposed a real major scandal that has very serious legal and criminal implications for former McGuinty staffers.
In his recent article, published in the Toronto Sun, Leslie has reported that Ann Cavoukian, Ontario's Privacy Commissioner is prepared to go public in her upcoming June report and reveal that senior officials in former Ontario Premier McGuinty's Office have destroyed and deleted many crucial internal emails relating to the cancellation of the Mississauga and Oakville gas plants.
Cavoukian scathingly castigated officials in McGuinty's office, when she publicly stated on Tuesday: "Someone...said it strained credulity that no one thought they should maybe retain some of the emails...There are retention obligations.Suffice it to say, I was not pleased, putting it mildly and you will see that reflected in the report that comes out."
According to Keith Leslie, the NDP requested Cavoukian to investigate the actions of the former senior staff in McGuinty's office, when former principal secretary Jamison Steeve and former deputy policy director Sean Mullin, testified in the legislative hearings on the gas plant cancellations that they had in fact deleted their email accounts.
Cavoukian also shockingly found that there were no emails from McGuinty's former chief of staff Chris Morley who has not yet testified at the justice hearings of the gas plant cancellations which cost the Ontario taxpayers $585 million and still counting.
As NDP Peter Tabuns noted, "An awful lot of records seem to have been destroyed contrary to the law. Clearly, if people are destroying records, there needs to be a penalty for that."
Right on, Peter.
The potential crime is "Obstruction of Justice", assuming the Ontario legislative committees that have been investigating the gas plant cancellations and hearing witness testimony are deemed to be engaged in a judicial proceeding. In this case, under Section 139 of the Canadian Criminal Code, the penalty for obstructing justice is at minimum two years in prison.
Note when the senior staff in the office of BC Premier Liberal Gordon Campbell were caught deleting e-mails, during a government corruption lawsuit, the BC NDP called for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the actions of the Liberal staffers.
Wouldn't that be fascinating if history repeats itself and the Ontario NDP call for a special prosecutor to investigate the actions of the senior staff of Liberal Premier McGuinty for deleting their emails.
Query, do Provincial Liberals throughout Canada have a special secret handbook on how to delete emails when the going gets tough?
The other fascinating aspect of this email destruction scandal, is that the crack investigative teams from the Globe and the Star have been strangely missing in action on this file.
Both the Star and The Globe seem more interested in the more sensational and salacious Rob Ford alleged crack cocaine video, than in the more politically significant nearly $600 million gas plant cancellation scandal and now the intentional destruction of email evidence.
Both The Globe and The Star have forgotten the golden rule of investigative journalism: "Follow the Money."
Instead, both these newspapers prefer immersing themselves figuratively and literally in the "schmutz" and dirt of the Ford brothers and in the messy private lives of their family members who are neither public officials or major public figures. Certainly, these family members and Ford associates are too insignificant to be worthy of our consideration.
When Rob Ford ran for Mayor, the people of Toronto, knew precisely what they were getting. Rob Ford never promoted himself as being a paragon of virtue. He was and still is, "Everyman", warts and all, with a side of greasy KFC.
Premier McGuinty, on the other hand, packaged himself as Premier Dad, "Father Premier Knows Best", a paragon of virtue.
So the fact that he surrounded himself with senior staffers who may have engaged in illegal acts, is truly a great story. An epic morality tale of arrogance and hypocrisy.
Worthy of the attention of both the Star and the Globe.
The fact that both papers are MIA on this McGuinty document destruction story, demonstrates that these once great newspapers, prefer shallow, superficial sensational tabloid journalism, to real, hard and serious investigative journalism.
How the mighty have fallen!!!