TORONTO -- A legislative committee will study a contempt of parliament motion against the Ontario government over the cancellation of gas plants in Oakville and Mississauga.
The legislature resumed sitting today for the first time in four months and the Conservatives immediately re-introduced the contempt motion, which accuses the Liberals of failing to release all documents on the gas plants requested by a committee.
It's the same motion the Tories moved last fall that names then-energy minister Chris Bentley, even though he's no longer a member of the legislature.
Government house leader John Milloy insists he and Bentley made honest mistakes last September when they told the legislature all the documents had been released, only to find another 20,000 pages a month later.
The NDP supported the Tory motion to send the contempt motion back to a committee, which is where it was slated to go last October when Dalton McGuinty suddenly prorogued the legislature and announced his resignation as premier.
Speaker Dave Levac ruled that prorogation did not negate his original finding that there was a "prima facie case of privilege" that should be examined by a committee.
The Tories say their privileges were violated by the Liberals' initial refusal to release all of the documents on the cancellation of gas plants, which cost taxpayers at least $230 million.
NDP house leader Gilles Bisson says it seems to him that it was part of the Liberals' strategy to try to block release of documents that may have been embarrassing to the government.
