TORONTO - It appears the premier's office told the developer of the Oakville gas plant that the project was cancelled before anyone told Ontario's energy minister.
Chris Breen, a lobbyist with TransCanada Enterprises (TSX:TRP), says senior staff in then-premier Dalton McGuinty's office gave TCE two days' notice the province was going to cancel the Oakville project.
He says TCE executives went directly from that meeting to one with then-energy minister Brad Duguid, only to discover he didn't seem to know about the cancellation.
Breen says when he told Duguid the premier's office had just told TCE the gas plant would be cancelled, the minister immediately shut down the meeting.
It's not the first testimony at justice committee hearings to show Duguid as energy minister didn't have much impact on the Liberals' decisions to cancel the Oakville gas plant or another one in neighbouring Mississauga.
Duguid told the committee Tuesday that he had recommended against scrapping the Mississauga project during the 2011 election campaign, but the Liberals went ahead and cancelled it anyway.
