The saga of Vice Admiral Mark Norman’s trial is making its way to the floor of the House of Commons, as Norman’s defence team has been trying to suggest that Brison tried to play a part in delaying the Davie Shipyard contract on behalf of his friends in the Irving family. Brison, meanwhile, tried to fend off the attacks in QP by suggesting that he did his due diligence as Treasury Board president to question the sole-source contract that the previous government entered into on the eve of the election.

Where this gets even more interesting, however, is with the suggestions in the documents that Norman’s team filed, was that senior bureaucrats tried to scuttle the deal because it could interfere with the established National Shipbuilding Programme, which everyone was so enormously proud of, and from there, Norman tipped off Davie officials, which was eventually leaked to the CBC. Added to that, Norman’s team are demanding a number of documents that have been deemed to be Cabinet confidence, which creates added complications because those are secret and could demand all new levels of safeguards for the court process if they are to be turned over. Trying to make political hay out of the government turning over the documents or not could be fraught with future consequences, however, for any future government that wants to protect secret materials from a court process, and given the growing propensity for people to turn to the courts when they lose at politics, that possibility could come sooner than one might expect. Nevertheless, this is an interesting case to keep an eye on, if only to shine a light on how broken our country’s procurement processes really are.

Good reads:

• Justin Trudeau says that he’s ready to start talking trade with China again now that the New NAFTA is done, and no, the Section 32.10 of the deal won’t be a problem.
• Trudeau also says that he has concerns about journalists Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance, and Chrystia Freeland says she’s talked to her Saudi counterpart.
• The government will be introducing a new bill to deal with the issue of solitary confinement following court decisions aimed at ending the practice.
• Marc Garneau says the government will undertake a fresh analysis of safety data regarding seatbelts on school busses.
• Dominic LeBlanc is hitting back against Doug Ford’s grousing about the New NAFTA, saying he was briefed on the terms before it was agreed to.
• Here’s a look at the committee debate over amendments to the electoral reform bill.
• Despite the naysaying, chiefs of police say they’re ready for legal cannabis, but the RCMP do expect a spike in requests for blood tests in their forensic labs.
• A former Canadian commander in Afghanistan says the Mali mission has no prospect for immediate success, and needs to build local capacity faster.
• A former Hill staffer is looking to get MPs to sign onto a pledge designed to better working conditions for staffers, and to prevent mental health crises among them.
• The Public Service Commission is conducting an audit of hiring practices to determine more about biases in the system.
• A StatsCan survey says that Canadian businesses spent $14 billion on cybersecurity in 2017.
• Former G7 Sherpa Peter Boehm, who is being sworn into the Senate today, says he applied for the position two years ago.
• Kady O’Malley’s Process Nerd column explains what a “Lobby Day” on the Hill is for industry associations and unions who head up to Parliament.
• Emmett Macfarlane explains why he thinks the Senate may become a more important avenue for Indigenous activism.
• Chantal Hébert says that any future government won’t undo marijuana legalisation, no matter what other programmes they scrap.

Odds and ends:

For national pregnancy and infant loss day, Conservative MP Tom Kmiec gave a speech about the loss of his infant daughter this summer.

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