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“Acting together, they destroyed records that they had a legal duty to preserve,” Egan told Ontario court Judge Timothy Lipson. “They acted contrary to the public interest.”

The Ontario Liberal government’s decision to shut the power plants in Oakville and Mississauga just before the 2011 provincial election — and the $1.1-billion cost incurred — had become an issue of “intense public scrutiny” that prompted requests for relevant data under freedom of information laws, court heard.

Acting together, they destroyed records that they had a legal duty to preserve

In fact, the Ministry of Energy had been found in contempt of the legislature in 2012 after it failed to turn gas-plant documents over to a legislative committee that had asked for them.

Livingston, who had been “painstakingly” warned about his obligations to preserve the documents, nevertheless decided to wipe the information from computers in the office of then-premier McGuinty, court heard.

“(Livingston) did this to ensure there was nothing to be turned over,” Egan said.

Photo by THE CANADIAN PRESS/Colin Perkel

Their decision to engage Miller’s information-technician spouse, Peter Faist, to wipe hard drives was a “serious and marked departure” from the standards of public trust for the positions they held, the prosecutor said.

Faist, she said, was not a government employee and did not have the required security clearance to access the computer system.

Egan stressed the trial was not about the controversy over the costs or wisdom of the gas-plants decision, which she said were merely a backdrop to the actions that led to the charges against the accused.