The Ontario Liberal government paid $10,000 to have the spouse of a Dalton McGuinty staffer wipe the hard drives of 20 computers, according to newly unsealed police documents.
The documents also indicate that police claim they had “reasonable grounds” to believe that one of the premier’s chiefs of staff committed a criminal offence.
The documents are from an OPP investigation into deleted Liberal government emails that dealt with the cancellation of gas-fired power plants in Oakville and Mississauga.
The plants were nixed by former premier McGuinty in what opposition parties have said was a move to save Liberal seats. The decision is estimated to have cost taxpayers up to $1.1 billion.
In November, OPP served a search warrant to IT staff at a provincial cyber security office in Toronto. Police documents regarding the results of the warrant were unsealed on Thursday.
The email inboxes of McGuinty's former chiefs of staff, Laura Miller and David Livingston, were seized by police. The emails include encrypted and protected documents dated between May 1, 2012 and Feb. 11, 2013.
The documents reveal that Miller's spouse, computer expert Peter Faist, told police that approximately 20 hard drives in the premier's office were wiped following the cancellation of the plants. They also reveal that 632,118 files were deleted.
A previously released court document showed that police alleged Livingston gave Faist access to the files that were wiped clean.
“He was paid an amount of $10,000 by the Liberal caucus for his work," the documents claim.
The new documents say Faist’s first attempt to purge the files failed because he lacked a master password. Once he got it, he emailed girlfriend Miller to say, “we have broken through.”
In the request for the warrant, Det.-Const. Andre Duval wrote that the IT expert believed McGuinty's office was aware of his presence and the work requested of him.
“Based on these facts, I have reasonable grounds to believe that Mr. David Livingston committed the criminal offence of Breach of Trust,” Duval wrote in the newly released documents.
No charges have been laid and Livingston has denied any wrongdoing.
Steve Clark of the Progressive Conservative opposition commented from Queen’s Park on Thursday. “It shouldn’t take an OPP investigation for the government to come clean,” he said.
After PC the opposition submitted a Freedom of Information request for all gas plants documents, Livingston had responded by writing, “nothing here.” Miller wrote, “I have no records.”
Several other members of McGuinty's staff are mentioned in dozens of pages of police documents.
Duval also wrote that there appeared to have been no security screening done on Faist before he was allowed access to potentially sensitive government documents.
None of the allegations in these court documents has been proven in court.
With a report from CTV Toronto’s Paul Bliss
