| MPP
Arnott calls for Legislative Inquiry into “Lottogate”
Calling for all-party Committee hearings on the OLG
scandal or “Lottogate” Waterloo-Wellington MPP Ted Arnott
made the following statement in the Ontario Legislature
on April 12th:
In
1973, the fundamental question in the Watergate scandal
in the United States, asked by Senator Howard Baker
of Tennessee, was: “What did the President know and
when did he know it?” When the truth came out after
a Senate Committee investigation, the President of the
United States resigned.
Here
we are more than 30 years after the Watergate scandal,
and the McGuinty Liberal Government hasn’t learned a
thing. Today, the fundamental question in the Lottogate
Scandal is: “What did the Minister know, and when did
he know it?”
For
the past three weeks, our Party has been asking this
question. In fact we’ve raised it, and questions stemming
from it, 121 times. We’ve received not one straight
answer from the Premier or any of his Ministers. Instead
they are hiding behind the Ombudsman’s Report, by claiming
they will adopt his recommendations. What they don’t
acknowledge is that the Ombudsman is highly critical
of the way the Government has managed our lotteries,
which may have led to thousands of Ontarians having
their winnings stolen.
I
recall during my first term here in the early 1990s,
the Ontario Liberal Caucus, then in Opposition, insisting
on Committee hearings when an NDP Minister was accused
of inappropriate conduct. They demanded hearings, and
they participated in those hearings with enthusiasm
and zeal.
Now
in Government, fifteen years later, they would seek
to deny the Opposition that same opportunity to seek
the truth.
What
have they got to hide?
There’s
an old adage that those who don’t learn from the mistakes
of history are doomed to repeat them. What did the Minister
know and when did he know it? The only way the public
trust will be restored is to answer this question through
a Legislative inquiry.
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