Bureaucrats should have issued warning, trial hears
Defence in gas-plants case says McGuinty staff not told to use government IT workers
The failure to warn Dalton McGuinty’s chief of staff against hiring an outside contractor to wipe hard drives was an oversight by senior bureaucrats, a defence lawyer argued Monday.
A memo authored by cabinet office legal counsel William Bromm cited the obligation to preserve records of government decisions, but did not specify government IT staff do computer work, Scott Hutchison said.
“That’s a gap, isn’t it?” Hutchison asked Bromm at the deleted documents trial of two top aides to Dalton McGuinty during his final months as premier amid the gas plants scandal in 2012 and 2013.
“That’s a hypothetical gap,” replied Bromm.
“I didn’t say that nor did I need to say it,” he added before being further pressed by Hutchison to confirm the memo does not expressly prohibit hiring an outside contractor.
“Correct. It does not say that,” Bromm continued before adding, “it would say that now.”
Former McGuinty chief of staff David Livingston and his deputy chief Laura Miller are on trial for breach of trust, mischief in relation to data and misuse of a computer system in the alleged wiping of hard drives.
They have pleaded not guilty and face up to 10 years in prison if convicted of the Criminal Code charges laid in the wake of the gas plants furor, in which legislative committees demanded documents explaining the decisions to scrap gas-fired power plants in Mississauga and Oakville before the 2011 election.
Court has heard that the premier’s office brought in private information technology consultant Peter Faist — Miller’s life partner — to wipe the hard drives. He is not charged.
This was in the days before Kathleen Wynne took power from McGuinty — who had resigned over the controversy swirling around his government — in February 2013 after Livingston obtained a special administrative password allowing access to computers in the premier’s office.
Bromm said earlier in the day that remarks from Livingston to another cabinet office official about hiring an outsider were not taken seriously, echoing testimony last week from former cabinet secretary Peter Wallace, his boss.
He called the remark by Livingston “a passing frustration and a stupid comment” and added “it never occurred to me” to speak to Livingston about it since it was so far outside of standard government procedures.
There are formal procedures in an official “procurement process” for contracting out such a job, said Bromm.
He agreed with defence lawyers that Livingston was not alone in feeling that the powers of a legislative committee dominated by opposition MPPs to compel the release of government documents in the minority government seemed extraordinary.
Initially, even Wallace, who as cabinet secretary was the head of the provincial civil service, was skeptical.
“He didn’t believe what I told him and he sought external advice,” Bromm said, referring to legal opinions Wallace sought out.
McGuinty was not part of the investigation and co-operated with police.
The trial continues Tuesday.