Ex-Ontario political aide gets four months’ jail for deleted gas plant emails
TORONTO — A plot to delete documents about the Ontario government’s pre-election cancellation of two gas plants struck at the heart of the democratic process, a judge said Wednesday as he sentenced a former top political aide to four months in jail.
The crime committed by David Livingston, chief of staff to former Liberal premier Dalton McGuinty, was extremely serious and demands proper denunciation, Ontario court Judge Timothy Lipson said.
“His conduct was an affront to, and an attack upon, democratic institutions and values,” Lipson said. “An attempt to tamper with the democratic process requires a strong denunciatory response.”
Lipson also sentenced Livingston, 65, a first-time offender with an otherwise exemplary record of private and public service, to 12 months’ probation, including 100 hours of community service. Livingston was led from court in handcuffs.
Defence lawyer Brian Gover said outside court that his client would appeal both conviction and sentence. Gover denounced the punishment meted out to his client, a married father and grandfather.
“That is a harsh and excessive sentence in the circumstances of this case where there was no proof of actual harm,” Gover said. “You can imagine how upsetting this is for all of them.”
Livingston was released on bail late Wednesday pending his appeal.
In passing sentence, Lipson said Livingston had directed the indiscriminate wiping of hard drives in the premier’s office in a deliberate effort at sparing the government embarrassment over its costly decision to scrap two gas plants ahead of the 2011 provincial election.
The document destruction occurred against express warnings from alarmed senior bureaucrats and amid deception by Livingston as to his real intentions, Lipson noted.
The sentencing in the politically sensitive case comes just two months ahead of a general election in which Ontario voters will cast judgment on McGuinty’s successor, Premier Kathleen Wynne, who has not been directly implicated in the gas plants scandal although she was a cabinet minister at the time.
Livingston was found guilty in January on two counts: illegal use of a computer and attempted mischief to data. The latter charge was stayed. The prosecution earlier withdrew a charge of breach of trust.
Livingston’s co-accused, former deputy chief of staff Laura Miller, was acquitted on all counts.
Lipson said he accepted the prosecution’s characterization of the accused as a “sophisticated government actor” who was in a position of trust and fully aware of his actions.