All roads in ORNG and e-health scandals lead to George Smitherman--maybe we got lucky with Rob Ford

The Star has been running a series of exposes about ORNGE, the province's air ambulance service. Among the disclosures is that its CEO is being paid $1.4 million a year. The paper's Queen's Park columnist Martin Regg Cohn notes that "like the eHealth controversy that has plagued the Liberal government for years, ORNG shares a common lineage with two other thorns in the government’s side — the controversial Green Energy Act and the Samsung deal, both of which attracted the auditor’s eye and opposition ire again this month. What’s the common theme linking all these political minefields — ORNGE, eHealth, Samsung and green energy? All roads lead to an ex-politician named George Smitherman. You remember, Dalton McGuinty’s second-in-command as deputy premier? (He left to run for mayor of Toronto.) It’s not that everything he touched turned to dross — he merely left a mess behind for others to clean up. The gift that keeps on giving. “Furious George,” as Smitherman was quickly dubbed, certainly knew how to kick down doors. He just didn’t know how to seal the cracks and fissures for the inevitable storm fronts."

Here is a link to Regg Cohn's column:

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1106619--cohn-the-political-roots-of-the-ornge-helicopter-debacle