Canadian Politics Today

By 2014, the Canadian navy's two supply ships had both become inoperable. One, the HMCS Preserver, was no longer seaworthy.  The second, HMCS Protecteur, suffered an engine fire in 2014 and was too badly damaged to repair. Both ships were retired, and Canada had no navy supply ship.  The National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy included commissions for two new supply ships, but they would not be available until 2020.

Chantier Davie Shipyards of Quebec, who had lost out in their bids for NSPS contracts to Irving Shipyards in Halifax and Seaspan in Vancouver, had earlier pitched a design to convert a civilian container transport ship into a vessel that could meet all the requirements of a naval supply ship. Admiral Norman, with no supply ships and no prospects for getting one for 5 years, went to the Conservative cabinet of the day, and asked them to approve the Davie proposal, at a total cost of $700 million. The Conservative cabinet did some legal maneuvering to allow them to award a no-bid contract on an emergency basis, and approved the Davie project in October 2015, one of the last things they did before the election.

On November 19 2015, at one of the first cabinet meetings of the new Liberal government, Scott Brison shows up with a letter from Irving Shipyards, and says "o hai guys! Why don't we put this interim supply ship contract on hold so that Irving can bid on it?"

So, just to recap, the interim supply ship contract was necessary because Irving couldn't provide the new supply ships until 2020.  Now Irving, through Brison, was asking that the interim supply ship contract be put on hold so that the company that couldn't provide supply ships until 2020 could bid on providing an interim supply ship. If that sounds kind of dumb to you, it could be that you're not a politician. 

Anyway, cabinet agreed with Brison and decided to put the contract with Davie on hold for 2 months to await a bid from Irving. The Premier of Quebec, and others in Quebec, went ballistic and warned of dire consequences if the contract with Davie were canceled. As well, the government of Canada would have to pay an $89 million cancellation fee to Davie for breaking the contract.  Cabinet quickly reconsidered, and reversed the decision to put the contract on hold.  Cabinet gave Davie approval to proceed on Nov 30 2015.  The new supply ship, MV Asterix, entered service in early 2018.



On November 20 2015, the day after the cabinet meeting where the Liberals had initially decided to halt the Davie contract, the CBC published this article by James Cudmore:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/davie-supply-ship-liberals-halt-1.3327039

This is the leak that the RCMP were tasked to investigate. They were told to find out who told James Cudmore what happened in that cabinet meeting in regard to the Davie contract.    Interestingly, James Cudmore left CBC news very soon afterward for a new job as a senior policy advisor to Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan.   Details of the cabinet meeting were also allegedly leaked to Davie Shipyard, who no doubt went to work contacting their own political allies in Quebec to raise hell about the potential loss of the contract.   

The search for the source of that leak led to Admiral Norman himself.  And he was charged with Breach of Trust in early 2018.


Norman hired Marie Henein, maybe Canada's most famous defense lawyer after the Ghomeshi trial.  She set about issuing subpoenas for communications between the Privy Council Office and the prosecutor, claiming that the prosecution was being directed by the PCO.  She was stonewalled in her request for those documents, which began arriving slowly and in heavily redacted form.  And she set about interviewing former Conservative cabinet ministers including Jason Kenney and Peter MacKay. When she turned over her findings to the prosecution last month, they dropped their case abruptly. Barbara Mercier said that based on the new information, there was "no reasonable prospect of conviction".   Defense Minister Sajjan agreed to pay all of Admiral Norman's legal costs, and one expects there will be financial compensation as well.  Norman wants to be reinstated to the navy.


There are a lot of questions going around regarding this affair:
 -did Scott Brison lobby cabinet on behalf of Irving Shipyards?
 -did the Mark Norman affair have anything to do with Scott Brison's sudden retirement?
 -why did Harjit Sajjan hire James Cudmore as a senior advisor right after he published the Nov 20 article?
 -why didn't the RCMP or the prosecution find the information that caused them to drop the case against Norman?
 -was the RCMP's investigation really "thorough" and "independent" as they claim?
 -did the prosecution, as Henein alleges, receive direction from the PCO?
 -was there any political pressure to pursue the case?
 -was their any political pressure to drop the case?
 

With the possibility of this thing heading to trial just months before the federal election, and the possibility of Scott Brison and others appearing on the stand and testifying under oath, this had the potential of being uncomfortable for the government and they're probably relieved that it has been dropped.


 -k

no - tactical decision to avoid yet another ConMedia fueled fake-scandal... despite it truly being a CPC one! How surprising kimmy that you {purposely?} missed the mark: that starts with a Harper decision to end-around procurement and sole-source...

The decision to bypass the usual procurement process to fast track the Davie contract was well documented and well justified by the circumstances.

and that continued right through the preliminary ramp-up where Harper and {at least} 3 former Harper cabinet Ministers, (Peter MacKay, Erin O'Toole, & Jason Kenney), held back information that could have stopped the investigation/PPSC criminal proceedings in its tracks. Of course, they didn't do that - purposely didn't do that! Why so kimmy, why so?

What evidence is there that they held anything back?  The RCMP never interviewed them. The prosecutor never interviewed them.  How were they supposed to know they had any information relevant to Admiral Norman's defense until Ms Henein interviewed them?

 -k

The decision to bypass the usual procurement process to fast track the Davie contract was well documented and well justified by the circumstances.

you mean the circumstances that had the Harper government ultimately cause the urgency in the first place: starting with a 2006 RFP to replace 'rusting out' supply ships... that was cancelled... then restarted, but not before the Navy was forced to retire both ships without replacements in sight - like that, hey kimmy! The real underlying issue is that Norman was under the direction of the Harper cabinet... who knew? Well, other than Harper and {at least} those 3 named former Harper cabinet ministers who ultimately gave up the information that led to the end of the RCMP/PPSC investigation & court proceedings.

What evidence is there that they held anything back?  The RCMP never interviewed them. The prosecutor never interviewed them.  How were they supposed to know they had any information relevant to Admiral Norman's defense until Ms Henein interviewed them?

  classic kimmy!

you mean the circumstances that had the Harper government ultimately cause the urgency in the first place: starting with a 2006 RFP to replace 'rusting out' supply ships... that was cancelled... then restarted, but not before the Navy was forced to retire both ships without replacements in sight - like that, hey kimmy!

Certainly neither party has been very good at procuring military equipment in a timely fashion.  This is exactly why single-sourcing the contract was the best way to make sure the navy got its ship quickly.

The real underlying issue is that Norman was under the direction of the Harper cabinet... who knew? Well, other than Harper and {at least} those 3 named former Harper cabinet ministers who ultimately gave up the information that led to the end of the RCMP/PPSC investigation & court proceedings.

  classic kimmy!

Wait, are you alleging that Norman leaked the information from the Liberal cabinet meeting because Kenney et al told him to?  That's pretty astounding.

Also, are you claiming to know the contents of the testimony Ms Henein obtained from Kenney and the others?


 -k

ya ya, full marks to Harper/admin for attempting to put out the fire they started - "the circumstances that had the Harper government ultimately cause the urgency in the first place: starting with a 2006 RFP to replace 'rusting out' supply ships... that was cancelled... then restarted, but not before the Navy was forced to retire both ships without replacements in sight"

oh my... your post is classic kimmy reverting to nonsensical kimmy! Usually occurs much later in a discussion!

by the by, the word you wanted was 'deposition', not testimony! Per media accounts, why would Ms. Henein only provide information to PPSC with a proviso that information could not be made public? Per the lead prosecutor Barbara Mercier, "The defence counsel gave it to us under certain conditions for our purposes only"

Why didn't Norman himself come forward publicly to disclose he, under the direction of Harper/cabinet, acted secretly as a back-channel agent in the sole-source pursuit? And, again, why didn't Harper and those {at least} 3 former cabinet ministers named come forward?

Cabinet had certainly authorized Norman to deal with Davie on the contract, but the notion that there was a "secret back channel" involved, or that anything illegal or underhanded went on is certainly not apparent in any way.  They'd specifically added a rule to make it legal to single-source a contract in an emergency situation.  The notion that Admiral Norman was engaged in underhanded or criminal behavior in dealing with Davie is patently absurd because they'd specifically changed the rules to allow him to do just that.

let me ask a kimmy-like question: are you claiming that the information provided by {at least} those 3 former Harper cabinet ministers had no bearing on the RCMP dropping its investigation... in PPSC stopping its court proceedings?

If Mme Mercier says it was a factor, then I can take her at her word.  I'm still confused as to what you're implying.

 -k

Cabinet had certainly authorized Norman to deal with Davie on the contract, but the notion that there was a "secret back channel" involved, or that anything illegal or underhanded went on is certainly not apparent in any way.

as member Impact highlights, you seem to be very confused as to what this issue is about/stems from. While you continue to try to get grounded on the subject, please come back and quote me speaking to, as you say, "illegalities... underhandedness". While you're at it, please provide reference/citation that it was "commonly known" that Norman's standing and actions had the authority/direction of Harper et al. I mean, after all, it's only come out in recent weeks that, "Vice-Admiral Mark Norman not only had the blessing of the former Conservative cabinet to deal with a Quebec shipyard, he was authorized to speak with it directly in the run-up to the signing of a $668-million leasing contract... that accordingly, Norman was acting within his authority to speak to the Davie shipyard"

so, of course, weakSauce Scheer is demanding yet another investigation... trying to squeeze out yet another ConMedia fueled fake-scandal. And Andy is doing so in spite of the RCMP, PPSC lead prosecutor and director, and Norman's commander (Gen. Jonathan Vance) stating there was no political engagement/interference in the investigation, resulting prosecution decisions and suspension of Norman from active duty. Why would any of that stop Scheer from acting the azzhole he is?

how telling is it that you purposely didn't use the identifier PPSC; choosing instead to use "Canadian government/federal government"? In that weakSauce Scheer trumped-up, ConMedia fueled fake-scandal concerning JWR&SNC-Lavalin, weren't you the guy who, 'went to the mattresses', to highlight the independence of the PPSC... that was you, wasn't it? 

You are wrong. The Canadian government claims as a result of documents from Chantier Davie Inc. is the reason they dropped their charges against Norman.

citation request: I've not read/heard anything to definitively state said documents... versus the depositions/documents received from the 3 former Harper cabinet members... was the reason the charges against Norman were 'stayed'. Again, citation request!

To date the federal government has  provided NO evidence Norman ever leaked anything. The RCMP for that matter seized Norman's personal computers but never provided any information from them to indicate a leak nor did they ever interview Norman.

what a stooopid comment; the 'Crown' has not released anything... more pointedly, the PPSC Director has stated they were given "information received from former Harper cabinet members", from the Norman defence team, under the proviso it would not be made public.

Not really sure what you are getting at here. From what I understand, the charges were dropped because the Crown did not have enough evidence to meet the standard of conviction required for the allegation. They dropped them after new evidence presented by the defence and third parties. Where did they state who the third parties were? The charges however were always breech of trust.

There was no evidence.  You claim there was evidence just not enough. There is none. That is why I asked you to provide it. It doesn't exist. If it exists ask Waldo to cite it. You know how important it is for him to cite things on this forum.