Criminal charges have been laid against former premier Dalton McGuinty’s two top aides after a lengthy OPP probe into deleted computer hard drives linked to the Liberals’ cancelled gas-fired power plants.

David Livingston, 63, McGuinty’s last chief of staff, and deputy chief Laura Miller, 36, were charged Thursday with breach of trust, mischief in relation to data, and misuse of a computer system.

They will appear in court on Jan. 27 and face up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

Through his lawyer, Livingston, a former TD investment banker who also headed Infrastructure Ontario, emphasized he “certainly did not break the law as alleged.”

“He was consistently open about his actions in the premier’s office. He always believed that those actions were proper and in accordance with normal practices. And he has co-operated with the police investigation,” said Fredrick Schumann.

“We are confident that he will be vindicated,” said Schumann.

The charges against Miller are a surprise. While police consistently said Livingston was a person of interest in the case, her name was never mentioned.

“I intend to vigorously defend against these charges,” said Miller, who stepped down Wednesday night as executive director of the British Columbia Liberal Party.

“After formally complaining about the conduct of the OPP in the way that they acted during their investigation into document retention, I find myself being charged,” she said, referring to her complaint to the Ontario Independent Police Review Director about the OPP.

“I have always had trust and confidence in the police. Today, that is not so.”

Her lawyer, Clayton Ruby, was incredulous.

“This is the office of the premier of Ontario, for God’s sake! No records get destroyed there. They just get stored somewhere else,” Ruby said in an email.

Ontario Provincial Police Detective Superintendent Dave Truax said the charges against Miller had nothing to do with her complaint about his officers.

“Of course not. The charges are laid as a result of the information learned in the criminal investigation,” Truax said in an interview.

In a separate interview, OPP Commissioner Vince Hawkes explained why the probe, which began in June 2013, took so long.

“This was a complex matter that included interviews with several persons in many locations, as well as thorough examinations of large amounts of electronic data,” said Hawkes.

McGuinty, who was never under investigation and co-operated with police throughout, was not available Thursday.

But his lawyer Ronald Caza said: “Today’s events again confirm there was no wrongdoing on the part of the former premier.”

The charges stem from the anti-rackets investigation into deleted hard drives related to the power plants the Liberals cancelled in Mississauga and Oakville before the 2011 election.

Livingston allegedly gave a special computer password to a non-government employee — Peter Faist, Miller’s common-law spouse — enabling him to wipe drives in the premier’s office as the McGuinty era drew to a close in 2013.

Faist, a computer specialist who has denied any wrongdoing and faces no charges, was paid $10,000 from the taxpayer-funded Liberal caucus budget. The party subsequently repaid the sum to the public treasury.

Opposition parties accuse the Liberal government of scrapping the gas plants — which faced community opposition — to keep five Oakville and Mississauga-area ridings in party hands.

The Oakville project was axed in October 2010 and the Mississauga facility the following September, less than two weeks before the tightly fought 2011 provincial election that reduced McGuinty’s Liberals to a minority.

A report from auditor general Bonnie Lysyk estimated that scuttling the plants and moving them to Sarnia and Napanee could cost up to $1.1 billion over 20 years.

Thursday’s charges complete an investigation that began after two Conservative MPPs wrote the OPP to outline suspicions about deleted documents and a cover-up.

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The case continues to dog Premier Kathleen Wynne, who replaced McGuinty in February 2013 and was elected to a majority in 2014 after the Tory vote collapsed.

Timeline of Events

In an interview with the Star on Thursday, Wynne emphasized the debacle predates her tenure.

“This happened before I was premier, these were not my staff members,” the premier said, noting she changed document-retention rules and protocols upon succeeding McGuinty.

B.C. Premier Christy Clark, meanwhile, rallied behind Miller, who was instrumental in getting her re-elected in 2013.

“In British Columbia, Laura Miller is known to her colleagues as a person of integrity and someone who has worked hard to move our party and the province forward. She has stepped down as executive director to focus on clearing her name,” said Clark.

“It’s important to respect the process now that unproven allegations are before the courts in Ontario in relation to matters that happened there three years ago.”

In pursuit of evidence, police executed three search warrants for computer hard drives from McGuinty’s office and for Livingston’s BlackBerry, believing the then-chief of staff might have used it to keep text messages off the government email server.

The police investigation followed extensive legislative committee hearings driven by Progressive Conservative and New Democrat MPPs hunting for political motives behind the gas plant moves and a possible cover-up.

The MPPs were alarmed when thousands of pages of documents ordered to be made public did not contain many, if any, emails or records from the offices of the premier and energy minister about the cancellations.

A separate 2013 investigation by then Information and Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian concluded Livingston failed to keep proper records, as did Craig MacLennan, a former chief of staff to past energy ministers Brad Duguid and Chris Bentley.

“It’s clear they didn’t want anything left behind in terms of a record on these issues,” Cavoukian told a news conference at the time, noting it is illegal to delete certain government under the Archives and Recordkeeping Act.

Tory Leader Patrick Brown said Thursday “it’s a disgrace that in the past three years there have been serious allegations levied against several high-ranking officials in the government of Ontario.”

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said “Ontarians have every reason to be disappointed by the news that … top Liberal aides to the premier’s office are being charged by the OPP.”

Both parties are eagerly awaiting the trials to hear what new information was recovered from the computers and BlackBerry.

“We’re going to learn a tremendous amount,” predicted Tory MPP Vic Fedeli (Nipissing), who made the original complaint to the OPP.

“We’ll continue to find surprises along the way — so it’s far from over.”

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