Trial over alleged hard-drive wipe begins
Two top aides to McGuinty stand accused over deletion of data tied to nixed plants
Two top aides to former premier Dalton McGuinty go on criminal trial Monday for the alleged deletion of computer hard drives linked to the Liberals’ scrapped gas-fired power plants.
David Livingston, 65, McGuinty’s last chief of staff in 2013, and deputy chief Laura Miller, 38, are accused of breach of trust, mischief in relation to data and misuse of a computer system.
The pair face up to 10 years in prison if convicted. They have denied any wrongdoing in the wiping of the hard drives in the premier’s office.
Defence lawyers are expected to appear in court Monday, however, asking for another week to examine boxes of evidence recently disclosed by the Crown.
McGuinty, who was never under investigation and co-operated with the police through their probe, is not expected to be called to testify in the trial that should run into November.
The Ontario Provincial Police allege Livingston gave a special computer password to a non-government employee — Peter Faist, Miller’s common-law spouse — enabling him to clean the computer drives in the premier’s office before Kathleen Wynne was formally sworn in on Feb. 11, 2013.
Faist, a computer specialist who has denied doing anything wrong and is not on trial, was paid $10,000 from the taxpayer-funded Liberal caucus budget for wiping the drives — mon- ey the party subsequently repaid the treasury.
Both the Progressive Conservatives and New Democrats believe the computers could have contained information linked to the Liberals’ controversial decision before the 2011 election to cancel the gas plants in Mississauga and Oakville, which were locally unpopular.
The Liberals held onto all five seats adjacent to the two proposed facilities in 2011 and again in the 2014 campaign.
Auditor general Bonnie Lysyk has estimated that moving them to Sar- nia and Napanee, Ont., could cost ratepayers up to $1.1 billion over 20 years.
The trial coincides with both the legislature resuming Monday and the ongoing Election Act trial related to the 2015 Sudbury byelection.
In that case, Premier Kathleen Wynne’s former deputy chief of staff, Patricia Sorbara, and local activist Gerry Lougheed are charged with offering an ex-Liberal candidate a job to quit the nomination race for preferred candidate Glenn Thibeault, now the energy minister.
Wynne will take the stand to testify on Wednesday.
Political science professor Henry Jacek of McMaster University in Hamilton said the gas plants trial is “much harder” for people to understand, which may limit political fallout for the Liberals.
“There can be fatigue from the gas plants . . . too much time has passed,” he said. “People think governments waste money, governments try to hide things they’ve done.”
As well, Wynne can distance herself from the case because she was not premier at the time, although she was in McGuinty’s cabinet, Jacek noted.
“This she can say was done before her. The public might give her a little slack. Sudbury was when she was in power,” he said.
The trial also comes against the backdrop of a June 7, 2018 provincial election that is expected to be tight.