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Hang on to your wallets everybody: Premier John Horgan and Jobs Trade and Technology Minister Bruce Ralston are both asking B.C. taxpayers to pay their legal bills in a $5-million libel lawsuit.

Horgan and Ralston confirmed to me on Wednesday that they have filed “indemnity applications” for taxpayers to pay for two high-priced lawyers to defend them in the case filed by former B.C. Liberal party leader Gordon Wilson.

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Horgan has hired top-flight libel lawyer Roger McConchie, while Ralston has hired seasoned Vancouver trial lawyer Ian Aikenhead (who happens to be a former president of the B.C. NDP.)

These legal eagles don’t fly for chump change. But their huge hourly fees could just be the tip of the money mountain in a fiasco that could burn taxpayers to a crisp.

Wilson sued last month after Horgan and Ralston inflicted a nasty drive-by sliming of Wilson while firing him as the province’s $150,000-a-year “LNG Advocate.”