Responsibility for oversight of the Ontario Securities Commission has been handed to the province’s Management Board Secretariat, following word that the OSC is investigating Royal Group Technologies Ltd., a firm where Ontario’s Minister of Finance, Greg Sorbara, served as a director.

Sorbara said he asked premier Dalton McGuinty to temporarily assign responsibility for the OSC to another Cabinet minister until the investigation is complete. The OMB is headed by Gerry Phillps, who had been tipped for the Finance post that was ultimately given to Sorbara.

“As Minister of Finance, I was advised by the Ontario Securities Commission in December 2003 of an ongoing investigation of Royal Group Technologies Ltd. As is appropriate, I was not provided with any details related to the investigation,” said Sorbara in a statement. “That investigation was confirmed yesterday in a press release issued by the company. It would have been inappropriate in December, as it is now, for me, as Minister of Finance, to comment on any aspect of this or any other publicly traded company while it is under investigation.”

“Nevertheless, I can confirm that, since December, I have not been contacted by any of the authorities involved in the investigation,” he said. “However, out of an abundance of caution and given that I was a director of Royal Group Technologies Ltd. prior to becoming Minister of Finance, I have asked the Premier to temporarily assign responsibility for the Ontario Securities Commission to another Cabinet minister until the investigation is complete. Certainly, should I ever become the subject of an investigation, I would step aside pending the outcome.”