The new Progressive Conservative government has axed a slew of high-profile Liberal appointees, including corrections reformer Howard Sapers, former Supreme Court justice Frank Iacobucci and ex-minister David Collenette.Premier Doug Ford, who toppled Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals in the June 7 election, has quietly been removing people from their government patronage posts since being sworn in on June 29.The scope of the purge only recently became public when the government posted a list of cabinet orders in council revoking a bevy of Liberal appointments.It was already known that Wynne’s privatization guru Ed Clark, the former TD Bank chair, was out as the premier’s business adviser and that former Liberal cabinet minister Monique Smith would no longer be Ontario’s representative in Washington.As well, the departures of Ontario’s chief investment officer Allan O’Dette and chief scientist Molly Shoichet were reported in July.But Sapers, the well-regarded special adviser on correctional system reform, had his $330,000-a-year contract terminated early. It was supposed to extend until the end of this year.He has been instrumental in recommending improvements to Ontario jails, such as reducing the use of segregation in facilities.Iacobucci was Ontario’s lead negotiator on the Ring of Fire talks with nine First Nations that make up the Matawa council. The massive chromite mining project is located about 575 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay.A Supreme Court of Canada justice from 1991 until 2004, Iacobucci was appointed by former Tory prime minister Brian Mulroney, father of Ontario Attorney General Caroline Mulroney.While the departure of Collenette, a former federal Liberal cabinet minister who headed the high-speed rail advisory body, was reported by TVO on July 6, the whole advisory panel has now been derailed.Wynne had tasked Collenette with working on a planned high-speed rail line between Toronto and Windsor, with stops a ...
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