Gas-plant email trial gets underway

TORONTO — The deletion of thousands of documents related to the politically explosive decision to cancel two gas plants near Toronto was a deliberate act that breached the public trust, the trial of two former top aides in the Ontario premier’s office heard Friday.

The long-awaited and delayed trial began with the prosecution outlining the case against David Livingston and Laura Miller, and the defence chipping away at whether a critical Crown witness could be qualified as an expert.

Livingston, the chief of staff to former Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty, and Miller, his deputy, have pleaded not guilty to charges of breach of trust, mischief, and unlawful use of a computer.

In her unproven opening statement, prosecutor Sarah Egan said the accused were responsible for the “double deletion” of sensitive emails about the power plants as a way to keep them secret and thwart the public’s right to accountability and transparency.

“Acting together, they destroyed records that they had a legal duty to preserve,” Egan told Ontario court Judge Timothy Lipson. “They acted contrary to the public interest.”

The Ontario Liberal government’s decision to shut the power plants in Oakville and Mississauga just before the 2011 provincial election — and the $1.1-billion cost incurred — had become an issue of “intense public scrutiny” that prompted requests for relevant data under freedom of information laws, court heard.

Their decision to engage Miller’s information-technician spouse, Peter Faist, to wipe hard drives was a “serious and marked departure” from the standards of public trust for the positions they held, the prosecutor said.

Following Egan’s statement, the prosecution called its opening witness: Robert (Bob) Gagnon, a retired Ontario provincial police officer with experience in computer forensics.

Gagnon would testify how emails were deleted from the accused’s government mail boxes in the summer and fall of 2012 and that thousands of documents were deleted in early 2013 from computers in the premier’s office, the prosecution said.

But the defence immediately raised objections over his designation as an expert witness, suggesting he was too close to the investigation to be impartial.

From the start of the probe, court heard, Gagnon sat in on numerous conference calls and meetings as investigators — former colleagues at the Technical Crimes Unit — discussed the case. He was given a provincial police email address and kept in frequent contact with team members.

The hearing continues Monday with arguments over Gagnon’s expert status.