Some observations after watching 10 days of the Sudbury bribery trial, involving Liberal Party fundraiser Gerry Lougheed Jr. and former Liberal campaign director Patricia Sorbara:
The Sudbury Liberals were really, really dysfunctional in 2014: That there was infighting among local Liberals heading into the June election is no surprise.
The struggle between Andrew Olivier and the Ontario Liberal Party (OLP) over the nomination was already known. The party wanted Marianne Matichuk, but when she turned them down, Olivier won the nomination. What emerged in the trial were problems between Olivier's camp and former MPP Rick Bartolucci.
It had been assumed the friction between the OLP and Olivier was the main point of contention. Bartolucci, no Wynne supporter, was assumed to be in Olivier's corner. But a new recording unveiled at the trial had Olivier complaining to Sorbara about Bartolucci, how he felt the former MPP was providing no help and was almost “sabotaging” his campaign.
Bartolucci hasn't testified, but Bill Nurmi, the former riding association president, testified they asked if they could help, but were told they weren't needed. Both stories can't be true.
And speaking of the Olivier campaign, the testimony of his former campaign manager, Aaron St. Pierre, left a few scratching their heads. At one point, Lougheed lawyer Michael Lacy asked St. Pierre if he remembered the OLP providing $50,000 for the June campaign, after the head office learned Bartolucci wasn't helping.
He couldn't remember. "Really?" Lacy asked. "As campaign manager, you can't remember if you received $50,000?" Nope, St. Pierre, replied. I don't recall.
In his days as provincial cabinet minister, Bartolucci and Lougheed were known as a power duo, working together to bring funding to the riding and advocating for the city. But something clearly went wrong with the relationship. Sorbara mentions in a chat with Olivier that Bartolucci told premier Kathleen Wynne he wouldn't be involved in the June election if Lougheed was invovled. Hmmmmmm.
Much has been written (not by me) about the plodding efforts of the Crown prosecutors in the case. I'm not a court reporter, so I don't have the same feel for how a court case is proceeding the way I do with city council meetings.
But it has seemed to me from the beginning the Crown was struggling. Witnesses often needed convoluted questions to be repeated because they couldn't understand what the prosecution was asking. The low point, though, came when one Crown lawyer, apparently forgetting whom he was questioning, asked a witness, “Who is Brian Band?” To which the witness, somewhat taken aback, replied “I am Brian Band.”
Nurmi had a good line about a lunch meeting at Alexandria's Restaurant that took place a few days after Olivier's explosive news conference on Dec.15, 2014. Wynne was in town doing damage control, and local Liberals were trying to get together. We've heard over and over again during the trial about the importance of political parties presenting a united front to the public and the media. So Liberal officials asked Nurmi to attend the lunch.
“I was asked to go to Alexandria's and stand beside them with a smile on my face,” Nurmi testified. “I refused.”
It's been surprising to see how much cross-pollination there is among political parties in Sudbury. In 2014, the Liberals were wooing Matichuk, who ran a conservative campaign to win the mayoralty in 2010, making stock populist promises like allowing voters to recall politicians they don't like. And her chief of staff at the time, Christine Hogarth, is actually running for Patrick Brown's Tories in the Toronto era.
And for the February 2015 byelection, they poached Thibeault from the NDP. All politics really is local.
The trial resumes Oct. 10, when the defence will seek to have the judge throw out the entire case.
Darren MacDonald covers city hall and provincial affairs for Sudbury.com and Northern Life.
