McGuinty's former staffers begin court fight in gas-plant case

Two top political aides to Ontario's ex-premier Dalton McGuintyhave been vowing to fight the criminal charges against them. That fight began officially today.

David Livingston was McGuinty's chief of staffand Laura Miller his deputy. They arecharged with breach of trust and mischief for allegedly destroying government documents about the cancellation of two gas-fired power plants.

• Two topMcGuintyaides charged in gas-plant scandal

• Laura Miller raising money for gas-plant defence

The pair had their first court date on Wednesday. Neither was in the courtroomat Toronto's Old City Hall, but their lawyerswere.The defence said the Crown has disclosed a lotof evidence and asked for more time to review it.

"It is a large amount of disclosure," federal Crown prosecutorRichard Roy told reporters outside court. "There are a lot of documents that were provided and expert testimony that needs to be analysed and there's a lot of witness testimony."

The provincial attorney-generalasked thefederal Public Prosecution Service of Canada to act as the Crown in this case "because there were high level people in the government that were being investigated," said Roy.

"There's a reasonable prospect of conviction and it's in the public interest to prosecute the matter," said Roy.

"We're eager to move this forward," said Livingston's lawyerFredrick Schumann."Mr. Livingston and Ms. Miller have had this hanging over their heads now for two and a half years."

Schumann told reporters outside the courthouse thatLivingston is "looking forward" to confronting theallegations in court.

"When he does so, we're confident that the evidencewill show he did nothing wrong, hecertainly didn't break the law," said Schumann. "He was open about everything he did in the premier's officehe followed proper procedures and acted in accordance with what he believed werenormal practices."

The Ontario Provincial Police charged Livingston and Millerin December. Each face charges of:

• Breach of trust.
• Mischief in relation to data.
• Misuse of a computer system to commit the offence of mischief.

Police allege the pair ordered the deletion ofthousands of governmentemailsregarding the government's decisionsto cancel the construction of two gas plantsplanned forOakvilleandMississaugain the lead-up to the 2011provincial election.

The cancellationswill cost Ontario taxpayers andhydroratepayersup to $1.1 billion, according to the auditor general.At the time, opposition parties called thedecision to axe the gas plants"an expensive Liberal seat-saver campaign."

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Police alleged in court documents that Livingston and Miller hired Miller's partner, Peter Faist a computer expert under contract to the Ontario Liberal Party who was given a special password by Livingston to wipe clean about 20 hard drives in the premier's office.

Both Miller, 36, of Vancouver, and Livingston, 63, of Toronto, maintained their innocence after the charges were laid.None of the allegations have been proven in court.

Miller, whostepped down from her postas executive director of the B.C. Liberal Party, said in a statement in December that the charges have shaken her confidence in police.

"She has nothing to add to that statement at the moment," defence lawyerAnnamariaEnenajortold reporters on Wednesday.

Miller has also launched anonlinecrowdfundingcampaignto pay for her legal fees and so far has made more than $62,000 of her $100,000 goal.The Ontario Liberal Party said it hasnot paid any of her legal fees.

Premier Kathleen Wynne used the Liberal majority to shut down legislative committee hearings into the deleted documents last year before Miller and Faist could be called to face questions about the wiping of the hard drives in the premier's office.

The next court date in the case wasset forFeb. 24. That's when lawyers will arrangeto fix a date for a judicial pre-trial. , TheCrown prosecutorsaidthepreliminary inquiry in the case is expected to be"longerthanusual" and the pre-trial will help ensurethe case moves asefficiently as possible.