Bode McGuinty and the Ontario Liberals for taking yet another bullet out of the Cons gun...He’s off the hook and off the list.
But does that mean former Ontario Finance Minister Greg Sorbara will soon be back in cabinet?
The ex-main money man of this province has officially had his name removed from the search warrants that forced his resignation seven months ago.
When the R.C.M.P. came calling on a company called Royal Group Technologies last year over some fraud allegations, Sorbara’s name hit the headlines.
He’d been a board member there since 2003 before quitting to return to the government post.
But his name on the warrant cast a cloud of suspicion on him that refused to go away.
He’d always maintained he’d done nothing wrong and had been trying to clear his reputation since the police appeared at the firm’s door.
But growing pressure from the opposition forced Dalton McGuinty to secure his resignation – a move he hoped would be temporary.
On Thursday, Ontario Superior Court Justice Ian Nordheimer's ruling quashed parts of the search warrants that included Sorbara's name, although the rest of the legal documents remain intact.
But that’s enough for the maligned minister, who claims it’s a real relief.
"Pretty damn good," he retorted when asked how he felt about the victory. "I'm thrilled."
The judge was critical of moves by the police agency, accusing them of moving in too fast without enough facts.
"There were a great many questions that were unanswered in the investigation, many of which needed to be answered before a decision could properly be reached that there were reasonable grounds to believe that the applicant had committed a criminal offence such as to validate the application for a search warrant,” he noted.
Sorbara was highly touted as Finance Minister, considered the key post next to Premier in the government.
The job eventually was handed to Dwight Duncan, who delivered his very first budget on March 23rd.
But McGuinty’s office has so far had little to say about whether or when Sorbara will be back at Queen’s Park.
Still, the MPP plans to celebrate the ruling.
"I think we will sip a little bit of champagne and then my wife and I may go home and play canasta or do something else that I'm not going to talk about," he laughs.
No charges have been laid in the Royal Group case and nothing has been proven in court.
Tory should have stuck to running the CFL... whoops, he kind of fucked up doing that too didn't he...
