Former Ontario premier McGuinty quits politics with ‘idealism intact’

Former Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty stepped out of politics on Wednesday, ending a two-plus-decade career of representing the Ottawa South riding and including nearly 10 years as leader of the province.

All that aside, McGuinty's tenure will come with an asterisk in the form of the ongoing gas plant controversy, which continues to threaten the Liberal government he helped form.

After 23 years in public office and a controversy bordering between scandal and boondoggle that threatens his legacy, McGuinty officially resigned office on Wednesday.

McGuinty said in a statement he would tender his resignation to the Speaker of the legislature.

"I leave politics with my idealism intact and a deep sense of gratitude for the opportunity to have served in public life," the statement reads.

The announcement comes after the province's privacy commissioner accused his staff of intentionally destroying documents and emails related to the cancellation of two gas plants ahead of the 2011 provincial election.

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McGuinty stepped down as premier in February and the party named Kathleen Wynne his replacement.

Since then, the controversy that simmered under the closing days of his tenure broke into a full boil. Wynne has been forced to address the situation, simultaneously disavowing any role in the gas plant controversy's genesis and apologizing as premier for the whole debacle.

In essence, she was apologizing for McGuinty, when he wouldn't or couldn't do it himself.

McGuinty, meantime, has remained absent from Queen's Park and invisible on the provincial stage.

He appeared in front of a commission investigating the gas plant affair but, as CTV News reports, often avoided sitting in the legislature. That includes earlier this week when the Liberal government passed its first budget under Wynne.

His last correspondence on social media was Feb. 11, when he posted a thank you on Facebook and a similar message on Twitter.

McGuinty's resignation letter suggests the party will hold a nomination meeting on June 20 to find his replacement in Ottawa South.

Yahoo! Canada's Andy Radia writes that Ottawa South will be the third by-election that will need to be called by Wynne. She already has to call riding elections following the resignations of former finance minister Dwight Duncan and former energy minister Chris Bentley.