Former McGuinty aides set pretrial date over gas plant charges
Laura Miller has just been reappointed by B.C. Liberals after denying any wrongdoing
The document deletion case against two former top aides to ex-premier Dalton McGuinty is moving forward as one of them returns to her post with the British Columbia Liberal Party as it prepares for an election next spring.
Lawyers for Laura Miller — reappointed executive director by the B.C. Liberals last week — and David Livingston appeared Wednesday in the Ontario Court of Justice to set April 28 as the date for a judicial pretrial meeting.
Livingston, who was McGuinty’s chief of staff, and Miller, his deputy, were charged in December with breach of trust and mischief, in relation to data and misuse of a computer system over allegedly deleted emails related to the cancellation of two gas-fired power plants before the 2011 election.
Both have denied any wrongdoing. McGuinty, who left office in 2013, was not a subject of the probe and co-operated with Ontario Provincial Police.
The case is being watched closely by all parties at Queen’s Park, where Premier Kathleen Wynne has been wary of commenting on Miller’s employment situation.
“The decisions that are made by the government in British Columbia are their decisions,” she told reporters this week.
“There’s a legal case that’s pending and I’m not going to comment on that status of that.”
Miller switched lawyers last month, hiring the same law firm, Henein-Hutchison, defending former CBC host Jian Ghomeshi, who faces sentencing Thursday in a sexual assault case.
Her lawyer Scott Hutchison, a former Crown attorney and an expert in computer crime, declined to comment when leaving the Old City Hall courthouse Wednesday morning following a brief appearance with Livingston’s counsel to set the April 28 date.
That’s when lawyers will meet privately with a judge and the federal Crown attorneys prosecuting the case to talk about how a trial would shape up. No date has been set.
After being charged in December, Miller stepped aside from her job with the B.C. Liberals to organize her defence and set up a FundRazr crowdfunding campaign to help with legal fees. She has raised over $73,000 toward a $100,000 goal.
The B.C. party released a statement last Thursday saying its executive board had decided to reappoint Mill- er after a “careful consideration and discussion” as the Liberals prepare to seek a fifth consecutive mandate from voters in May 2017.
“That discussion was made unanimously, reflecting the full confidence we have in her,” said party president Sharon White.
B.C. Premier Christy Clark called her party’s decision “the fair and right approach, one that respects the court process, including the fundamental principle that every person is innocent unless proven otherwise.”
The leader of B.C.’s New Democrats, John Horgan, said voters in that province may find it odd that a top Liberal official is “under a cloud, facing criminal charges.”