Ontario’s Liberal government is not keen on reminding voters of its links with former premier Dalton McGuinty — current Premier Kathleen Wynne can’t bring herself even to mention his name. But the Liberals remain committed to his support for recycling: On Friday they revealed hopes of recycling an old McGuinty plan to sell off billions of dollars of assets to help finance new “investments.”

“We’re going to evaluate the best use of these assets as well as the maximum potential of the respective Crown businesses,” Finance Minister Charles Sousa told the Economic Club of Toronto, putting the best corporate spin on the plan. “We are going to determine which business the government should be owning and what it shouldn’t.”

A panel will be set up under Ed Clark, CEO of the Toronto-Dominion Bank, to evaluate properties and other holdings, and identify any that  “may no longer serve a public good.” Sousa cited shares in General Motors the province acquired when it helped bail out the automaker in 2009.  Other possibilities include utilities Hydro One Inc. and Ontario Power Generation Inc., and perhaps even the LCBO, the monopoly liquor operation that paid the province a “dividend” of $1.7 billion last year.

JASON KRYK/ THE WINDSOR STARMcGuinty: Wasn’t that my idea?

Continuing in business-speak, Sousa added: “To maximize the value of these assets to the province, they will look at measures such as efficient governance, growth strategies, corporate reorganization, mergers, acquisitions, and public-private partnerships.”

“The council will give preference to continued government ownership of all core strategic assets.”

Hmm, interesting. So rather than just let the stuff sit around gathering dust, Mr. Clark has been recruited to figure out ways to run them better or sell them off. Giving preference to “government ownership” of “core strategic assets” means nothing, since the government can declare anything core or non-core, depending on how it feels.

None of the money is to be wasted paying off debt. Heaven forbid. Last thing a province owing $288 billion, and adding to it at a rate of $11 billion a year, would want to do is reduce debt. No, the money will be reinvested — i.e. spent — on new projects the government can tout whenever it is forced to go to the polls, which could quickly follow its May budget.

Though Mr. Sousa wasn’t eager to remind anyone, his plan echoes a similar scheme floated by Mr. McGuinty three summers ago. The idea then was to combine the LCBO, Hydro One, OPG and the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. into one big “super corporation” and sell off parts of it to raise money. Mr. McGuinty was just as strapped for cash as the Wynne government, and similarly didn’t want that to stop him pledging new spending plans.

“We want to the take the proceeds out of assets we already own and invest them in other assets to make some legacy investments,” an unnamed Liberal said at the time, sounding a lot like Mr. Sousa.  It was rumoured that SuperCorp would be headed byDavid Livingston, then the CEO of Infrastructure Ontario. Mr. Livingstone later became Mr. McGuinty’s chief of staff and is now under investigation by police on allegations of overseeing a mass purge of emails about the $1.2 billion gas plant scandal. It’s the embarrassment of that allegation that has Ms. Wynne unable to mention her predecessor by name.

SuperCorp — which was supposed to raise up to $12 billion — never happened. The plan was fiercely opposed by government unions, which fear being severed from the friendly confines of government employment and faced with a less malleable private sector employer. Mr. Sousa may find his scheme equally unpopular, at a time when the minority Wynne government is particularly keen to keep organized labour onside, and depends on the New Democratic Party to keep it in office. NDP MP Peter Tabuns quickly questioned Sousa’s plan, suggesting it mirrored a Progressive Conservative privatization plan, just at a slower rate.

The Liberals are looking for any means to pay for transit expansion and other infrastructure expenses, without raising taxes.  Ms. Wynne has pledged to push ahead with badly-needed transit projects in the Toronto region, but has since ruled out most of the primary means of raising revenue to pay for it. In that context, an old plan must look better than no plan at all.

National Post