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Peter Wallace, seen in 2013, told court on Wednesday he thought the Dalton McGuinty’s chief of staff, David Livingston, wanted an administrative password to delete personal information.Moe Doiron/The Globe and Mail

Ontario's former top bureaucrat says it is inconceivable that he would have given premier Dalton McGuinty's chief of staff special access to desktop computers in the premier's office had he known it would be used to access government records held by other staff members.

Peter Wallace, now city manager of Toronto, testified in court at Toronto's Old City Hall on Wednesday that he thought the chief of staff, David Livingston, wanted the special access password to delete personal information. The former secretary of cabinet was responding to questions from Brian Gover, a lawyer for Mr. Livingston, who accused Mr. Wallace of doing nothing to determine whether the access he approved was different from what seven staffers in the premier's office already had. Mr. Wallace testified earlier that he approved the request from Mr. Livingston because staff in his office already had administrative access.

"You knew the password was to be used to clean data off hard drives," Mr. Gover said during lengthy, and often testy, cross-examination.

"Of at least one computer," Mr. Wallace responded. "I knew absolutely nothing about the relative strengths of the passwords," he said later.

Mr. Gover also questioned why Mr. Wallace did not ask Mr. Livingston to clarify a comment he made in passing to a staff member in the cabinet secretary's office that he was planning to have someone outside government wipe hard drives in the premier's office.

"You could have spoken to him on any number of occasions," Mr. Gover said, adding that Mr. Wallace was well aware Mr. Livingston was angry with the government's internal IT department.

"There was nothing to clarify for me, as I understood this to be a passing frustration and a stupid comment," Mr. Wallace responded.

Mr. Livingston and former deputy chief of staff Laura Miller face criminal breach of trust and mischief charges in connection with the destruction of e-mails and other government records related to the cancellation of two gas-fired power plants west of Toronto just before the 2011 provincial election. Each has pleaded not guilty.

Police say Mr. Livingston hired a non-government IT expert – Ms. Miller's spouse, Peter Faist – to "wipe clean" computer hard drives in the premier's office just days before Mr. McGuinty stepped down in February, 2013.

At the time of the transition from Mr. McGuinty to Premier Kathleen Wynne, Mr. Wallace as secretary of cabinet presided over the provincial public service and its more than 60,000 employees. He testified that he delegated the task of determining whether anyone in the premier's office already had administrative access to David Nicholl, Ontario's corporate chief information officer. After Mr. Nicholl reported to him on Jan. 30, 2013, that the seven staffers in the premier's office already had administrative access, Mr. Wallace testified that he had no basis to deny the request from Mr. Livingston as there was a precedent.

Mr. Wallace said he did not want to do anything unprecedented during the transition, which he said earlier took place during a "deeply sad and very difficult time" when the governing Liberals were dealing with the fallout from their decision to pull the plug on the power plants and Mr. McGuinty was leaving in difficult circumstances.

"Saying you are bound by precedent serves as a convenient justification for why you provided the password," Mr. Gover said.

Police documents say Mr. Livingston got much more extensive access than the staffers had, allowing him to alter and delete files on all the hard drives in the premier's office. But Mr. Nicholl testified on Monday under much friendlier cross-examination by Mr. Gover that he did not know the difference between administrative rights for an individual computer or a group of computers. In many instances, Mr. Nicholl simply responded with a one-word answer to questions from Mr. Livingston's lawyer.

"You didn't find out whether the [administrative] rights were limited to one computer or more?" Mr. Gover said. "Correct," Mr. Nicholl responded.

"You were not in a position on Jan. 30 to explain to Peter Wallace that there was a difference. It's not your fault. You didn't understand administrative rights very well," Mr. Gover said. "Yes," Mr. Nicholl responded.

And when Mr. Livingston also approached Mr. Nicholl about getting administrative access, "Is it fair to say the conversation was at the 50,000-foot level and you did not get into details," Mr. Gover asked. Again, the response was: "Yes."

Mr. McGuinty is not under investigation and has co-operated with the probe.

The trial continues on Thursday.

Ontario is establishing an opioid emergency task force to provide advice on how to combat the growing overdose crisis. The province’s health minister says his government has the opportunity to save lives every day.

The Canadian Press

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