Liberal leader Bonnie Crombie says that, if she forms the next government, she’ll put her predecessor and his decisions under a microscope. In front of the hastily erected fences outside the Ontario Science Centre on Thursday, Crombie told reporters that the litany of scandals Premier Doug Ford’s government has subjected the province to over the past six years deserves some kind of inquiry or investigation, even after voters have had their say.
“We need a special investigator to look into all the very shady deals to provide some transparency, some sunlight like we have today, God bless, and some accountability,” Crombie said. “The people of Ontario want accountability; they want to know where their money is going.”
Among the topics Crombie listed for potential investigation: the closing of the science centre, the decision to build a spa at Ontario Place, the government’s use of ministerial zoning orders and revisions to municipal official plans that benefited Tory donors, and the costs of accelerating the introduction of beer and wine in corner stores, something Crombie has lampooned as a “billion dollar boozedoggle.”
NDP leader Marit Stiles was skeptical of the Liberal’s pitch — not because she questions the need for an independent assessment of the PCs’ record but because she’s not convinced a new government would need to reinvent the wheel.
“I’m not really understanding the purpose of that or why you would want to privatize out that kind of investigation," Stiles said, before taking a dig at Crombie, whom she described as “the other candidate with ties to developers” that she didn’t trust. (Crombie received tens of thousands of dollars in donations from developers in her Liberal-leadership bid.)
There’s less to this division between opposition party leaders than meets the eye. Crombie argues that the independent officers of the legislature — the auditor general, the integrity commissioner, and the financial accountability officer among them — are simply overloaded and wouldn’t be able to conduct an investigation quickly enough. Stiles argues that these are precisely the offices that have the powers necessary to carry out such an investigation.
Questioned by TVO Today on Thursday, both leaders separately agreed on one possible avenue: a select committee of the legislature itself.
“I think that’s absolutely something we would look to pursue. We have the tools,” Stiles said. “If the legislature was sitting right now, we would be doing that.”
Later, Crombie confirmed her party would also consider that option, saying, “It’s a possibility. I’m open to all options right now, whether it’s a select committee, a public inquiry — I’m open to options right now.”
Observers with a long-enough memory may recall that, in 2018, the freshly elected Tories convened a select committee to investigate the Liberal Fair Hydro Plan. In principle, the powers of the legislature (and, by extension, its committees) are extensive. Committees can order the production of documents and compel testimony. Individuals called to testify before the legislature cannot refuse to answer a question — they don’t have the right to remain silent. (The constitutional bargain here is that information extracted in this manner can’t be used to prosecute someone afterwards.) The full investigatory power of the legislature could make anyone, even premiers past and present, squirm.
Reasonable people can, of course, disagree on whether it’s democratically healthy to follow an election with a forensic review of your predecessor. In this context, however, the category of “reasonable people” has to exclude nearly every current sitting member of the Progressive Conservative caucus and some former PCs/current independents, as they voted to set this precedent.
That said, the full precedent is one that the Liberals would be wise to recall if they decide to go this route. I defended the Tories’ select committee, at least in principle, arguing that elections don’t necessarily get to be the final word on a government’s conduct: “In a basic democratic sense, it would be profoundly unsatisfying to treat the last several years as a black box to be sealed up and shelved like that crate in Raiders of the Lost Ark.”
The key to making a select committee legitimate is to do the work to ensure it doesn’t turn into a partisan witch hunt or score-settling exercise. Six years ago, the Tories didn’t do any of that necessary work, so reasonable people tuned it out. (Be honest: Can you remember a significant revelation from that committee? I had to google my own work to remember.) To put it another way, the public didn’t take its findings seriously, because the Tories, including their leader, didn’t take the work seriously.
The lesson for whoever comes after the Progressive Conservatives in government is, I hope, obvious. The investigative powers of the legislature are enormous, and they shouldn’t be used trivially. But they exist for a reason, and holding the executive accountable is absolutely a proper function of the legislature’s powers. Winning an election isn’t a reason to forgive or forget misconduct in office, so losing an election certainly shouldn’t be. So, yes, the next legislature has the right to dig into the dark corners of the current government.
But even if the next party that forms government is merely looking to score cheap political points, it should recall the 2018 select committee and how quickly it vanished from the public consciousness. The Liberals didn’t do well in the 2022 election, but the select committee had precisely zero to do with that. Voters aren’t stupid, and they can tell when the fix is in. If there is an investigation into this government, the only way it will stick in people’s minds — or, better yet, do the serious work of actual oversight and accountability — is if it's seen as separate enough from the partisan day-to-day that people take it seriously.
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