In April 2005, the McGuinty Government closed the coal-fired Lakeview Generating Station in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).
In August 2008, the Minister of Energy and Infrastructure directed the OPA to competitively procure a combined-cycle gas generation facility in the southwest Greater Toronto Areas with a capacity of up to 850 megawatts (MWs).
In September 2009, the OPA announced it had accepted a bid by TransCanada Energy (TCE) to build a 900-megawatt natural gas-fired power generation facility in southeast Oakville.
[5] On December 11, 2009, the fast-growing Citizens for Clean Air coalition in Oakville stepped up opposition to the project with the campaign slogan: 'It just doesn't make sense.
'[5] By June 2010, TCE had missed the contract's milestone dates for obtaining pre-construction approvals and permits from the Town of Oakville.
[2] On October 1, 2010, local opponents rallied at the Ontario legislature and brought in American environmentalist Erin Brockovich to help generate publicity for their fight with the government.
[6] Ceding to increasing opposition, Duguid proposed to feed the GTA's power demand by improving transmission lines.
[8] NDP candidate Anju Sikka wrote in an open letter to Dalton McGuinty "An NDP government would never allow construction to begin before a thorough and independent Environmental Assessment has been completed", and PC candidate Geoff Janoscik stated in a press release "A Tim Hudak Government will cancel this plant".
[2] TCE had already missed key dates and the Town of Oakville was threatening to fight the project to the Supreme Court of Canada if necessary.
[13] Energy Minister Chris Bentley announced an agreement was reached on August 24, 2012, but still maintained the cost of the cancellation would be $40 million.
Later in October 2012, Premier McGuinty rejected a media report citing research by energy consultant Tom Adams estimating the cancellation costs of the Mississauga and Oakville plants at $1.3 billion.
On March 18, 2013, the Minister of Energy for the first time stated that the $40 million estimate of the cost of canceling the Oakville plant "could be wrong.
On May 16, 2012, the Estimates Committee of the Ontario Legislature adopted a motion directing the former Minister of Energy, the Ministry of Energy, and the OPA to produce "all correspondence, in any form, electronic or otherwise, that occurred between September 1, 2010, and December 31, 2011, related to the cancellation of the Oakville power plant as well all correspondence, in any form, electronic or otherwise, that occurred between August 1, 2011, and December 31, 2011, related to the cancellation of the Mississauga power plant."
On September 12, 2012, Energy Minister Chris Bentley stated he would comply with the Speaker's order to provide gas plants documents but asked for six weeks more time so as to not jeopardize negotiations with TCE.
Miller emailed back to Guy stating Premier's Office staffer Dave Gene "is putting the member from Brant [ie: Levac] on notice we need better here.
[17] On Thursday, March 7, 2013, the Standing Committee on Justice Policy began their review of the contempt charge against Chris Bentley as well as "observations and recommendations concerning the tendering, planning, commissioning, cancellation, and relocation of the Mississauga and Oakville gas plants".
[19] Conservative committee members called the Honourable Peter Milliken PC, former federal Speaker of the House of Commons, as a witness.
[citation needed] At a meeting of Justice Policy Committee of the Legislature on April 9, 2013, NDP MPP Peter Tabuns asked the former Chief of Staff to the Minister of Energy why the political staffer had provided no documents.
According to Cavourkian's report "MGS IT staff described the difficulty and complexity of reconstructing data from a search in the email RAID server into a useable file.
Specifically, MGS IT staff stated that while searching for a deleted email from yesterday would require a great deal of effort, searching for data from two or three months ago would be “fruitless, as the data no longer exists.” MGS IT staff further stated that reconstructing the data from a search in the RAID server into a usable file would be “tantamount to reconstructing a single shredded document from a bin of shredded documents.” The commission also found there was "a culture of avoiding the creation of written documentation on the gas plants issue.
[21] On August 20, 2013, Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian said the Wynne government had provided "inaccurate and incomplete information in my initial investigation" about the ability to retrieve deleted emails.
To draw an inference that the deleted files did, in fact, contain business or work-related material would, at best, amount to an educated guess and that is impermissible.
The ruling stated that "Mr. Livingston's plan to eliminate sensitive and confidential work-related data, in my view, amounted to a 'scorched earth strategy, where information that could be potentially useful to adversaries, both within and outside of the Liberal Party, would be destroyed.
The Court found that there was evidence suggesting that Ms. Miller was a party to the offenses, having been deeply involved in the government's communication strategy with respect to the power plant controversy, and having assisted David Livingston in selecting hard drives to be wiped.
Upon coming into office, we introduced a number of significant measures to strengthen the document retention protocol and ensure that all staff are aware of their responsibilities."
The (then) Opposition leader MPP Patrick Brown stated that "[t]he guilty verdict is an indictment of the 15 years of Liberal political corruption that has long been rooted in the premier's office.