Roundup: The Norman trial collapses

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As expected, Crown prosecutors announced yesterday that they were staying the breach of trust charges that had been laid against Vice Admiral Mark Norman regarding the leaks of cabinet confidences related to a shipbuilding project, and people who don’t pay attention to details decided that the timing was suspicious and spun a number of conspiracy theories, many of them around the fact that Andrew Leslie was due to “testify against” the government. (Reality check: Leslie agreed to be a character witness for Norman months ago, and PMO was fully aware and there were no indications that they tried to dissuade him from doing so). With that out of the way, Norman made a statement about bias and presumption of guilt by senior levels of government, and his lawyer, the formidable Marie Henein, threw shade at PMO – stating that while the prosecutors acted independently, she felt PMO was withholding documents for far too long in the process – and the suggestion is that some of the Harper-era documents were what eventually exonerated him (though the Crown attorneys said there was no one piece of evidence that was responsible). As this was happening, Harjit Sajjan announced on his way into caucus that the government would pay Norman’s legal expenses. Norman later met with the Chief of Defence Staff, General Jonathan Vance, who said that with this out of the way, that Norman would be returning to duty soon, though we’ll see if it will be back as vice-chief of defence staff, as the role has since been filled by someone else. There are lingering questions – lots of them – about what happened here, but there aren’t likely to be many answers anytime soon given that the trial for the bureaucrat also charged with leaking information is coming up.

And great Cyllenian Hermes, were there a lot of hot takes on the end of the Norman trial today. Christie Blatchford described Norman’s ordeal, while Andrew Coyne has so many questions. Susan Delacourt and Matt Gurney both point out that this could remove one controversy from Justin Trudeau’s plate before the election, but both point to the lasting reputational damage that this has helped to inflict on Trudeau.

I have a few comments of my own that nobody seems to have brought up – one of them is to point out that the RCMP unit that investigated the leak was apparently the same one who investigated Senator Mike Duffy, and so ballsed up that investigation that we all know how it ended. Perhaps we should question whether this investigative unit is very good at their jobs. The other thing that bothers me in this whole affair was less about the leak than it was about what appears to be a high-ranking military official who balked when Scott Brison, the Treasury Board president, put the process on pause so that they could examine the sole-source contract granted by the previous government (as is the official version of events). Remember that this contract was granted after the House of Commons rose for the summer (and before the election call), and when Senators raised it while they still sat, the government offered no clarity or details, so there was no proper scrutiny at the time. That matters. But whether Brison paused the process to examine it, or to possibly open it for tender, it shouldn’t have been for Norman to work his contacts to try and pressure the government to resume the process (as is the allegation), because that undermines the civilian control of our military. Nobody is talking about his angle, which I think needs a better airing in all of this.

Good reads:

  • The US Senate has passed a resolution to praise Canada’s handling of the Meng Wanzhou case. (It would be better if they could help our detained citizens).
  • Women’s and refugee groups say the changes to refugee rules in the budget implementation bill can harm women feeling domestic violence.
  • Canadian Blood Services has dropped the blood donor ban for men who have sex with men to three months, down from a year.
  • Health Canada is changing some of their rules to try and get prospective cannabis producers online faster.
  • Here’s a look at what Canadian troops are doing in Iraq in the hopes of preventing a future insurgency.
  • A Christian woman from Pakistan who was acquitted from a death sentence for blasphemy has apparently been resettled in Canada, where her family preceded her.
  • Supreme Court of Canada Justice Clement Gascon was briefly declared missing by Ottawa police, but was later found and apparently hospitalized.
  • Here is a look at the process for amending Bill C-69 at the Senate’s energy and environment committee later today.
  • While Andrew Scheer has a wish list of military procurement, his deficit hawk tendencies have experts point out that his list will likely remain just that.
  • Elizabeth May says that Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott should soon decide whether or not they want to join the Green ranks.
  • Incoming Green MP Paul Manly was once rejected by the NDP over statements regarding Israel.
  • Here is a glimpse at some of the people running for Maxime Bernier’s party.
  • More testimony before Quebec’s National Assembly pointed out that their “secularism” bill will simply enshrine discrimination against Muslims.
  • Kady O’Malley’s Process Nerd column offers a timely reminder of what happens when the Senate starts amending bills (like we’ll see a lot of in the coming weeks).
  • Kevin Carmichael looks at the mortgage stress test the Bank of Canada implemented, and why politicians are trying to make hay of it.
  • Chris Selley takes issue with the Correctional Service of Canada’s policy of allowing inmates to self-identify as Indigenous because they think it will get them out sooner.

Odds and ends:

The plans for the temporary House of Commons in the UK were unveiled, as the Palace of Westminster prepares to undergo its own badly needed renovations.

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3 thoughts on “Roundup: The Norman trial collapses”

  1. Commentators on main media outlets yesterday were misinforming viewers that Leslie was going to testify at the Norman trial as if he had some earth shattering testimony perhaps perhaps implicating the Liberals in some sort of malfeasance when all he was going to do was give a personal character opinion. These reporters do this on many occasions particularly when discussing the “carbon tax” never mentioning that people in the provinces that have no plan will receive a check and those with a plan will get a tax credit like BC for example. Fake news.

  2. “Reality check: Leslie agreed to be a character witness for Norman months ago….”

    I think it’s time for a “reality check” on the “reality check.”

    This yammering on in Routine Proceedings day after day about how Andrew Leslie was only going to be a “character witness” at the Norman trial appears be fact-free.

    Since they worked together, Leslie could have been a character witness for the Vice-Admiral but it seems Norman does not lack for these. It’s more likely, as CBC’s Murray Brewster reports on May 3, that Leslie was going to be an expert witness:

    “He commanded the Canadian Army for a number of years and has unique knowledge of the inner workings of the Department of National Defence and the many challenges the military has faced in procuring equipment.”

    Brewster reports, further:

    “Dave Perry, a defence analyst at the Canadian Institute for Global Affairs, said that if the case goes to trial, Leslie would fall into the category of ‘expert witness’.

    “He’s got a solid understanding of how someone who is in the position Admiral Norman was in would interact with government, or could interact with government,” he said.

    “He would probably be able to provide testimony (about) how the head of the army, navy or air force would interact with different political figures, the prime minister, the prime minister’s office, the minister, the minister’s office, the media. All of those kinds of things. And I think Andrew Leslie would be an expert in all of those aspects.”

    • I’ve heard that his testimony was to be as a character witness directly from Liberal MPs, not media speculation.

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