In a fiery news conference Friday afternoon, Premier Kathleen Wynne condemned the opposition for hypocrisy over the Sudbury bribery scandal.

She said members of both parties have previously approached her staff to inquire about getting jobs in exchange for giving up seats — but she wouldn't name names.

And if there was any question that Wynne would ask her deputy chief of staff to resign over the scandal, she put it to rest on Friday afternoon: Unless charges are laid, Pat Sorbara isn't going anywhere.

"I will not force someone to resign in the face of allegations that I do not believe to be true," she told a packed room of reporters at Queen's Park.

"Pat Sorbara particularly is a seasoned professional and a woman of integrity."

Sorbara, along with Sudbury-based Liberal organizer Gerry Lougheed, are at the centre of a scandal over allegations they offered jobs to Andrew Olivier to drop out of the Sudbury byelection nomination contest.

Elections Ontario has reported an "apparent contravention" of the Election Act's bribery section, and OPP documents filed in court have said there are reasonable grounds to believe a criminal offence occurred.

The opposition has howled over Wynne keeping Sorbara in her job as deputy chief of staff while the investigations proceed. Lougheed also remains in his provincially appointed position as chair of the Greater Sudbury Police Services Board.

"It’s astounding that the premier would continue to drag her feet on taking appropriate action," PC Interim Leader Jim Wilson said. "It casts tremendous suspicion on her motives."

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said Wynne is setting "a new low" by keeping Sorbara in her job.

In a public letter to Wynne, Horwath called it "a clear breach of trust between your government and the people of Ontario."

Wynne, however, characterized it as a difficult situation "inflamed by opposition parties who must know the hypocrisy of their positions."

"Members from both opposition parties have approached members of my team on a number of occasions suggesting they would vacate their seats if we would guarantee an appointment," she said. "We refused each time."

She declined to elaborate, saying only that these approaches had come prior to the June election.

In response, Tory house leader Steve Clark said Wynne was trying to "change the channel."

"If she's going to make those allegations, she needs to give a little more information," he said.

NDP house leader Gilles Bisson called it a "desperate and cynical attempt to distract from the criminal investigations."

Wynne also spoke to her own line of thinking in the lead-up to the byelection. She said the Liberals "should not have lost that seat" in June, a clear shot at Olivier, who had been the party's candidate.

She said that when she met Glenn Thibeault in November – who at the time was a federal NDP MP, but was willing to defect – she immediately knew he should be their candidate.

Wynne brought up her own personal experience in losing a nomination race in the 1990s that had been fixed for another candidate, and said it convinced her a party should never hold "sham nominations." Instead, when there's a clearly preferred candidate, an appointment should happen.

"In those instances, that is the honest course of action," she said.

But the timeline around the appointment of Thibeault remains in dispute.

Wynne said no crimes could have been broken because she had already decided to appoint Thibeault when the conversations happened. However, the tapes clearly show both Lougheed and Sorbara asking Olivier to step aside so an appointment didn't have to happen.

When pushed by reporters on whether her decision to appoint had been made clear to Sorbara and Lougheed, Wynne said, "It should have been, and I believe it was."

Wynne argued that the conversations heard on the tapes were her party's effort to reject "old-style politics."

"I did not have to have a conversation with Andrew Olivier," she said. "We could have moved ahead without talking to him, and he could have read about our decision in the newspaper."

Wynne goes on offensive over Sudbury scandal, warning of opposition hypocrisy

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