Just say sorry — but keep your chequebook handy.

Premier Kathleen Wynne is waiting for an apology but won’t rule out seeking damages in a libel action against Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak for charging she “oversaw and possibly ordered the criminal destruction of documents to cover up the gas plants scandal.”

“It’s very unfortunate,” Wynne said as Hudak again refused to back down but notably refrained from repeating the controversial statement and others that Wynne and her lawyer describe as “defamatory.”

“I would hope that he would take action to retract and to remove all of the allegations that he has made,” Wynne added during a visit to a seniors home. She admitted it’s unusual for a premier to threaten a libel suit against a rival like Hudak, who is urging the New Democrats to topple the minority Liberals by voting against their upcoming budget and force a spring election.

But any lawsuit could seek more than an apology, Wynne’s office later said later, insisting financial or other damages have not been ruled out.

“All options are still on the table,” said spokeswoman Zita Astravas.

Wynne has repeatedly asked for a retraction of alleged defamation on the PC Party website linking her to the wiping of computers that the OPP claims occurred between Feb. 6 and March 20 of 2013, in the final days of her predecessor Dalton McGuinty and the first few weeks of her administration.

Police are investigating former McGuinty chief of staff David Livingston for breach of trust in allegedly passing a special computer password to a non-government employee who wiped hard drives clean in the days before Wynne came to power. Tests are ongoing to see if hard drives were wiped during her tenure. Livingston has denied any wrongdoing.

The premier did not tip her hand as to when a statement of claim might be issued in the case and her lawyer, Mark Freiman of Lerners LLP, would not comment.

The notice of libel served Friday centres on a news conference held in the legislature’s media studio by Hudak and Tory MPP Lisa MacLeod on March 27 — the day the OPP allegations were revealed on www.thestar.com — and a subsequent tweet from MacLeod comparing Wynne to former U.S. president Richard Nixon of Watergate fame.

“It was the intention of Mr. Hudak, Ms. MacLeod, the Ontario PC Party and the PC Ontario Fund that their defamatory statements would be repeated in the media,” wrote Freiman, whose tab is being paid by the Ontario Liberal Party.

He takes particular aim at a MacLeod tweet that read: “Watching the news. Got to see the Kathleen Wynne ‘I am not a crook’ Richard Nixon impression during her 3rd press conference again.”

This implies Wynne is a “crook,” engaged in a coverup and is “deserving of hatred and contempt as Richard Nixon,” wrote Freiman, a former deputy attorney general.

Hudak told reporters “this is as much Kathleen Wynne’s scandal as it is Dalton McGuinty’s” and said the premier should be more focused on creating jobs for unemployed Ontarians.

“We are not going to be intimidated by a series of angry letters coming from Kathleen Wynne and the Liberals. I just wish they would spend as much times trying to get our economy going again.”

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath described the Wynne-Hudak squabble as a “sideshow.”

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“The premier of this province and the leader of the opposition can send threats back and forth until they’re both blue in the face.”

A legislative committee investigating the gas plants scandal will hear testimony Tuesday from the province’s chief corporate information officer, David Nicholl, who will be asked about his role in approving a special computer password used to wipe clean hard drives in the premier’s office.

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