Premier Dalton McGuinty admits it "doesn't look good" that his labour minister did not investigate complaints against Liberal MP Ruby Dhalla — so from now on he'll have to take a ministry official with him to public meetings.Unfortunately, Dalton... this isn't about how anything looks. It's about an obvious breach of public trust involving three high profile Liberal politicians.
In such a meeting two weeks ago, Ontario Labour Minister Peter Fonseca and Education Minister Kathleen Wynne heard complaints that Dhalla illegally hired and then mistreated two caregivers.
The two women claim Dhalla seized their passports and forced them to work unpaid overtime, shovel snow, shine shoes — even clean the family's chiropractic clinic.
Fonseca first heard the allegations at Wynne's constituency office during a meeting with about 30 nannies and caregivers.
In spite of the numerous concerns expressed, the labour minister did nothing to investigate.
Remember all the fuss the CBC made over Maxime Bernier's shapely squeeze? Or Belinda supposedly being slandered in parliament.
Try to imagine the reportage here if, say... Peter Mackay had been similarly snared in a Nannygate type situation.
Why does Peter Fonseca deserve a pass here?
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RELATED: Stuff you won't hear on CBC...
...or at the Globe...
But what is truly laughable in this statement is that the Ethics Commissioner's job is not to investigate potential wrongdoing by MPs except where conflicts of interest might exist.*
The Ethics Commissioner is not called in when an MP is caught speeding down the highway, or writing nasty emails to critics, or illegally hiring nannies.