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VAdm Norman - Supply Ship contract: Legal fight

This is a good thing though - it only serves in the interest of the VCDS.


Politically motivated charges because he pushed through a contract signed by the previous government, to get the RCN a sorely needed capability.  (Renting from Chile is just embarrassing...)

Politically motivated charges. 

The defense still hasn't received full disclosure. 

The crown withholding a variety of documents from the defense by claiming they are of a "secret" nature. 

A department that ensured documents were produced without his name on it. 

A finger pointing circus as to who told who what to hide & withhold. 

A witness coming forwards and requiring witness protection, despite it being the federal government who led the charge to prosecute in the first place...


If this were an average person going to court, this s**t-show would have been on it's way to a trash can by now, I'd think?
 
The CDS testified today. Stated that he only talked to the PM for a "few seconds" about VAdm Norman.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/vance-cds-records-norman-breach-of-trust-1.4998411

Excerpt:
"Canada's top military commander says he spoke just once — and only for seconds — to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about the Mark Norman breach of trust case.

The brief call came after Chief of Defence Staff Jonathan Vance met with RCMP officials about the case. The general said he also met with Trudeau's principal secretary and chief of staff to brief the office on what he had learned from the RCMP on Jan. 9, 2017.

Vance is testifying at the pre-trial hearing for his second-in-command, Vice-Admiral Mark Norman. Norman has pleaded not guilty to one count of breach of trust. He is accused of leaking cabinet secrets related to a $668 million contract to lease a supply ship for the navy.

He said all his communications with Trudeau and his staff were verbal and that he took no notes on the conversations.

"I have no record," he told the court."

Doesn't matter that he only talked to the PM for a few seconds. The real power is held by the two people I've highlighted above. Would be nice if those two were called to the docket.

 
My opinion of senior management and DOJ is being reinforced far to much by all of this. Sir Humphrey Appleby would be proud.
 
FSTO said:
The brief call came after Chief of Defence Staff Jonathan Vance met with RCMP officials about the case. The general said he also met with Trudeau's principal secretary and chief of staff to brief the office on what he had learned from the RCMP on Jan. 9, 2017.

Does that mean that Butts and Tetford may be called to testify?
 
And you can be certain that those two will tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth.  right?
 
YZT580 said:
And you can be certain that those two will tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth.  right?

Despite any political misgivings people may have, I would expect senior public servants to *not* commit perjury.

If and when they do testify, if there are allegations such as the one above, I expect they will enjoy the same presumption of innocence the rest of us, VAdm Norman included, enjoy.
 
JesseWZ said:
Despite any political misgivings people may have, I would expect senior public servants to *not* commit perjury.

If and when they do testify, if there are allegations such as the one above, I expect they will enjoy the same presumption of innocence the rest of us, VAdm Norman included, enjoy.

With the ongoing descriptions of behaviour that have been coming out so far, I think it would be wrong to expect anything but the worse from everyone involved in this debacle. I can't see how the people involved would be any different than anyone else that have been caught in(and caught up in) wrongdoing, they will deny and obsfucate.

Maybe I am too cynical but I'm sure perjury is not uncommon in court rooms across the world, it's not like a bolt of lightning is going to come out of the heavens and strike anyone down.

At what point does the Crown just walk away or are they intent on completely destroying their own case and exposing all the rot in Ottawa at the same time. Or is it possible that the defence is just doing a marvelous PR job and the Crown actually has that magic bullet?

Does the Crown still need to prove that the former VCDS profited from his alleged behaviour?




 
Rifleman62 said:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/norman-breach-trust-access-1.4996445?fbclid=IwAR0PGyIFKWiqvJIxmtpWNirCUS3i4SXwVgG-FTQQsLd1is8EMmImISsEB_s

Two probes launched into claims that military blocked information requests in Norman case - 29 Jan 19

There are now at least two investigations underway into allegations Department of National Defence officials intentionally tried to subvert the federal access to information system in the breach-of-trust case involving the military's former second-in-command. CBC News has learned military police have joined the federal information commissioner in probing claims that senior staff at National Defence have avoided using Vice-Admiral Mark Norman's name in internal correspondence as a way to keep his records out of the public domain. The allegations were made by a member of the military who handles access to information requests at a pretrial hearing last month.

Norman is charged with one count of breach of trust for alleging leaking cabinet secrets to an executive at the Davie shipyard, located in Levis, Que. His defence team is seeking access to thousands of pages of government documents related to the plan to lease a supply ship to the navy — an effort the federal government's lawyers have fought against, arguing many of the documents are not relevant to the criminal case.

'Alarmed and disgusted'

In testimony, the military member (whose name is protected by a publication ban) told the court he approached his commander in July 2017 asking for help with an access-to-information request for internal documents about Norman. His commander, he said, smiled and said there were no records because officials were being careful to avoid using the vice-admiral's name in memos, email and briefings. That would mean any search for records about Norman would come up empty. During a year-end interview last month with CBC News, the country's top military commander, Gen. Jonathan Vance, said he was "alarmed and disgusted" by the notion that someone might have been trying to bury the records. Vance has been subpoenaed to testify Tuesday as Norman's pretrial hearing resumes in an Ottawa courtroom.

A spokesman for National Defence acknowledged Monday that the Canadian Forces National Investigative Service opened a criminal investigation into the allegations shortly after information commissioner Caroline Maynard opened her own probe. "This is an ongoing investigation. As such, no timelines are available," said spokesman Dan Le Bouthillier said in an email statement. He suggested that National Defence is working in concert with the information commissioner. "We have contacted the [Office of the Information Commission] and agreed to work together and provide any information required to conduct the investigation," said Le Bouthillier. "The OIC understands DND is investigating and appreciates that we are taking this seriously. Given these ongoing investigations, ‎it would be inappropriate for us to comment further at this time."

Sources have told CBC News that interviews have carried out by military police over the last three weeks with an eye to laying charges. An expert in military law and the access to information system was startled to hear about the involvement of military investigators.

'Military police have got no authority'


The information commissioner, said retired colonel Michel Drapeau, "has the means to investigate and the duty to investigate and all of the necessary powers." In cases where the commissioner suspects the law has been broken, the procedure dictates calling in the RCMP — not military police — he said. The military's national investigative service is set up to be at arm's-length from the chain of command, but Drapeau said it's still incredibly unusual for an organization accused of wrongdoing to essentially investigate itself. He also said he wonders what background the force has to examine potential breaches of the information act. "Military police have got no authority and no expertise and no competence to do that."

The CDS sure seems alarmed at everything that happens under his watch. To read his statements on the various debacle that have occurred since he became CDS, no one tells him anything.
 
Tcm621 said:
The CDS sure seems alarmed at everything that happens under his watch.
Much like Capt Renault was shocked, shocked to find gambling occurring in Rick's café.  ;)
 
http://nationalpost.pressreader.com/national-post-latest-edition/20190131/textview

BROTHERS IN ARMS, FOES IN THE COURTROOM
- National Post - CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD - 31 Jan 19
    Vice-Admiral Norman’s ouster didn’t come up over dinner with PMO staffers, says Gen. Vance

Born in the same year, to military families, Jon Vance and Mark Norman followed separate career tracks as rising stars, Vance in the army, Norman in the navy, until they ended up, respectively, as the Nos. 1 and 2 in the Canadian Forces. They would have worked together intimately, and likely found themselves, long suffering spouses in tow, at dozens of the military/government social functions that are an inevitable part of life for ambitious officers. Perhaps they were even friends.

But on Jan. 9, 2017, Vance gave his second-in-command what’s called “a notice of intent,” alerting Norman that he might be relieving him of military duty. An RCMP investigation into Norman’s conduct was underway. Vance had just been briefed on it by deputy police commissioner Gilles Michaud. Vance then went to brief Gerald Butts, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s principal secretary, the PM’s chief of staff Katie Telford and others. That meeting started, Vance estimates, around 4 p.m. Then Vance got a phone call from the PM himself, who confirmed he’d been told. Then Vance gave Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan and his own chief of staff the news. He took not a single note of any of these discussions. And then he went out for dinner with Butts and Telford.

“We did not discuss that (the Norman suspension), I’m quite sure,” Vance told Ontario Court Judge Heather Perkins-McVey Wednesday.
Not even Norman’s ferocious lead lawyer, Marie Henein, asked Vance what on Earth the three did chat about — this after all is a pre-trial motion, not the actual trial — but the question leaps like a big fat trout into the air. Does the Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS) usually break bread with the PM’s top two aides? If so, why? And if not, why then this time on this sad and unusual occasion?

Vance was subpoenaed by Norman’s defence team to testify at their third-party records motion, one of the team’s multi-pronged efforts (they also have badgered insensate prosecutors for disclosure, written personally to Trudeau and made several Access to Information, or ATI, requests) to get at government documents in the case they believe will exonerate Norman. He was later charged by the RCMP with one count of breach of trust for allegedly leaking confidential information to a CBC reporter and an acquaintance at Chantier Davie, the Quebec shipyard the former Stephen Harper government chose to supply the navy with an interim supply ship.

In late 2015, the then-new Liberal government, under pressure from rival Irving Shipbuilding to have another look, appeared to want out of the deal. But media reports that it would cost taxpayers $89 million if the contract was cancelled appeared to have changed the government’s hive mind, and it went ahead. By the by, that ship, the MV Asterix, just completed a stunningly successful first year of operations.

In any case, back to the Ottawa courtroom, where Vance in the witness box and Norman sitting kitty-corner at the defence table, squared off. It was impossible to know if they even exchanged glances.

The public record is silent on whether Vance defended or advocated for his former Vice-Chief, but it certainly appears to the outsider that after a long and noble career, Norman was thrown under the proverbial bus. He is the only person to have been criminally charged for leaking information, though others have been identified as having done so, and in fact, it’s the norm in Ottawa. And the courtroom is entirely absent of his fellow “flag officers” (senior officers) and generals, and there are more of them in the Canadian Forces than you can shake a stick at. So while ordinary Canadians and retired military friends may support Norman, his own are missing in action.

Vance’s evidence was notable on a number of points besides the Butts/Telford dinner.

At this hearing last December, an anonymous witness, a CF member, testified that he had been directed by a brigadier-general to answer “nil response” to a 2017 ATI request for documents about the Norman case. The senior officer allegedly said, “This isn’t our first rodeo” and told his junior they weren’t dopey enough to refer to Norman by name in documents such as emails.

That raised the spectre of a deliberate attempt by the Department of National Defence (DND) to thwart proper requests for information by using code names. In fact, just days later, Vance raged to CBC News about how “extremely serious” and even “disgusting” that allegation was, if true. He vowed to get to the bottom of it. Henein asked, reasonably enough, “So what did you do?” And the sum of what he did, in his own words, is that “I spoke to the deputy minister and expressed my concern.”

Here is where Vance engaged in a remarkable hairsplitting exercise. (By definition, in the military, a blond hair is considered the finest and thinnest, and it’s that sort he split.) You see, after the anonymous witness’s testimony, the defence team filed an ATI request for possible code names. Only then, Vance said, did the penny drop that it was all those damn military acronyms and nicknames (for instance, for Norman, the list includes C34, because he’s the 34th navy commander, and “The Boss” and “The Substantive VCDS or Vice CDS) which were confusing things.

Why there wasn’t, he told Henein, anything “sinister” about those names. Heck, he said, “I’ve been aware of this list my whole life.”
This wasn’t the institution “using code words to avoid having to respond” to ATI requests, heavens no. This was just military folks, speaking in jargon, being their impenetrable selves. However, he acknowledged the effect would be absolutely the same.

A search for documents without those code words, he said once, and “You could miss something,” or as he said another time, when Henein asked, “You won’t get that document?” Vance replied “Right.” The search was only recently ordered rerun within DND, the court heard from another witness, with code words and nicknames. Two sections have responded they have no documents. Ten other sections have yet to respond.

FUBAR, as soldiers say, comes to mind: F---ed Up Beyond All Recognition



A comment from the NP by a retired military person:

Christie has noted the closeness of the career paths of the General and Admiral, both of whom have achieved a rank one above their respective fathers. Also a bit of a coincidence, both their fathers served in the same infantry regiment, The Royal Canadian Regiment, very likely knew each other, perhaps well, and it is possible their sons crossed paths in their youth.
 
And the courtroom is entirely absent of his fellow “flag officers” (senior officers) and generals, and there are more of them in the Canadian Forces than you can shake a stick at. So while ordinary Canadians and retired military friends may support Norman, his own are missing in action.

There is maybe nothing to read into this.  I don't imagine many GOFO have time to spectate a court case in the middle of working hours and, since this whole court case is highly politicized, I would not be surprised if GOFO have been advised to just stay away and not be seen around the trial.
 
My thoughts also, but that doesn't sell newspapers. I do enjoy Christie's columns on any subject.
 
MCG said:
There is maybe nothing to read into this.  I don't imagine many GOFO have time to spectate a court case in the middle of working hours and, since this whole court case is highly politicized, I would not be surprised if GOFO have been advised to just stay away and not be seen around the trial.

It doesn't stop someone in Ottawa from taking a vacation day and showing up in civilian dress and letting Norman see you, to let him know that you are there for him. 
 
Perhaps this was all done in favour of Mr. Norman?


I'll be the first to admit, there may be some details about the ongoing legal proceedings - especially recently - that I may not have understood correctly.

But if the department isn't identifying him by name, dragging it's heels on releasing information, not providing prosecutors with certain material the prosecution would be required to disclose, etc - this all works in favour of the VCDS?

Perhaps Vance declaring he only spoke with the PM once, briefly, in passing about the issue - as well as all of the problems his lawyers are having with obtaining disclosure, witnesses feeling they need protection from the government, senior officials 'not having any records or e-mails with him named specifically', etc etc - is all part of efforts to have the VCDS back?


I haven't followed the specifics enough to know either way.  Just a thought...


 
CBH99 said:
Perhaps this was all done in favour of Mr.  VAdm Norman?  FTFY

I'll be the first to admit, there may be some details about the ongoing legal proceedings - especially recently - that I may not have understood correctly.

But if the department isn't identifying him by name, dragging it's heels on releasing information, not providing prosecutors with certain material the prosecution would be required to disclose, etc - this all works in favour of the VCDS?

Perhaps Vance declaring he only spoke with the PM once, briefly, in passing about the issue - as well as all of the problems his lawyers are having with obtaining disclosure, witnesses feeling they need protection from the government, senior officials 'not having any records or e-mails with him named specifically', etc etc - is all part of efforts to have the VCDS back?


I haven't followed the specifics enough to know either way.  Just a thought...
 
Thanks!  I spent a lot of time in provincial court, I get used to calling everybody "Mr." and "Mrs." - thanks for the correction
 
I wonder if Brisson is asking for standing at court to be able to counter Normans defence?
Maybe that's the excuse he's using? So as not to offend Butts, et al and tip his hand.  :dunno:
Perhaps he's really worried about getting thrown under the bus by team trudeau and wants standing to defend himself?
If I understand the reason for standing.
Idle speculation.
 
Lots of memory fade here. I think I would have taken notes. CYA at least.

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/christie-blatchford-norman-defence-says-attempt-to-obstruct-justice-within-dnd-now-in-play?video_autoplay=true#comments-area

Christie Blatchford: Norman defence says attempt to obstruct justice within DND ‘now in play’ - 31 jAN 19
    Neither Chief of Defence Staff Jon Vance nor the defence minister’s chief of staff searched their personal phones or emails for relevant communications as instructed

OTTAWA — At the time Zita Astravas was the crisis manager in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office, Vice-Admiral Mark Norman arguably was the crisis, or one of them anyway. Yet Astravas, who testified Thursday at a pre-trial hearing in Norman’s breach of trust case, struggled to remember the names of her own staff or her interactions with two other key members in Trudeau’s office, principal secretary Gerald Butts and chief of staff Katie Telford.

“Did you also deal with Ms. Telford?” defence lawyer Marie Henein asked. “I would deal with all persons on a senior level,” Astravas replied. “But with Telford?” Henein asked. “I don’t recall specifically,” said Astravas. “Mr. Butts?” the lawyer asked. “I don’t recall specifically,” Astravas said. She was the “issues manager,” which she agreed meant she was responsible for crisis management, from November of 2015, just after the Trudeau government took office, until November of 2017, well after Norman was suspended as the No. 2 in the entire Canadian Forces.

The then-new government was wanting to take a second look at a sole-source contract the previous Stephen Harper government had signed with the Chantier Davie shipyard in Quebec for a desperately needed supply ship for the navy. The Trudeau government eventually proceeded with the contract, but only after news reports that a cancellation would cost taxpayers $89 million.

It is to one of those reporters, from the CBC, and to an acquaintance at Chantier Davie that Norman is accused of leaking confidential information. He is charged with a single count of breach of trust. Norman was temporarily suspended as Vice Chief of the Defence Staff (VCDS) in January of 2017, but wasn’t charged by the RCMP until March of 2018.

Astravas’s poor memory for a period hardly lost in the mists of time — her most frequent response was easily “I don’t recall” — was remarkable. She now works as chief of staff for Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan. And it is Sajjan’s department, the Department of National Defence or DND, which Norman’s lawyers suggested may have attempted to obstruct justice.

While making submissions, lawyer Christine Mainville told Ontario Court Judge Heather Perkins-McVey that testimony given earlier this week by Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) Jon Vance means that “an attempt to obstruct (justice) within DND is now in play.” Vance came to court Wednesday with four banker’s boxes full of documents in response to a personal subpoena dated Dec. 18 of last year. But he testified that in response to an earlier defence subpoena served upon the department in October — it sought disclosure of all records, emails, text or BlackBerry messages in which the Norman matter was discussed — he didn’t search his personal phone or email address.

Similarly, when Astravas was asked the same questions on Thursday, she too replied that she had never searched her personal phone or email for communications about Norman on the advice of DND. She said she was “not certain” who in the department had advised her. Yet justice lawyer Rob MacKinnon confirmed for the judge Thursday that when he gave advice to DND last December, “I made it clear the searches were to include” personal emails and phones. Vance’s boxes of documents will be soon handed over to the judge in a secure form. Before her now, on a secure laptop, are about 6,300 government documents, none from DND.

Justice lawyers are in the process of reviewing another 13,000 records. These documents are a mix of those that ought to have been disclosed by prosecutors to the defence in the normal course — such things as notes a witness interviewed by the RCMP may have relied upon — and those which may be protected and thus redacted.

Disclosure of some of those records in the first category, Perkins-McVey remarked Thursday, “should have been done years ago. Why it wasn’t (done) is baffling.” As Henein told the judge, that prosecutors hadn’t been curious enough “to read the notes” of their own witnesses was galling. She told Perkins-McVey that prosecutors seem to define their established duty to disclose evidence “by what the Crown wants to ask” and have been taking what she called “a startlingly narrow view of relevance and disclosure.” Lead prosecutor Barbara Mercier told the judge that the Crown believes very little of what’s in Vance’s boxes are relevant. She described the past week as “a very large fishing expedition” by the defence that “could go on and on til kingdom come.”

The judge’s task is to first determine whether a document is relevant. Those records she deems relevant she then must examine to see if the contents breach solicitor-client privilege, litigation privilege or public interest immunity. Witnesses who testified were subpoenaed by the defence team as part of what’s called a “third-party records” motion, in which they are seeking documents dealing with the Norman investigation and prosecution from various government departments and players.

Curiously, in this case, the government is all things — the instigator of the investigation, in that it was the Privy Council Office (PCO) which called in the RCMP; the controller of what documents are or aren’t released to the defence, via again the PCO and the prosecutor, in the form of a team of federal Crowns. Henein is bringing an abuse-of-process motion, saying she can’t properly defend Norman (who still hasn’t been able to access his own emails) in these circumstances. That will be heard the week of March 25.



From the Comments to the article:

In the attached article, Astravas is described by someone who knew her well that she is a ""nose-to-the- grindstone, don’t-miss-a-detail, don’t-drop-a-thing worker". Funny that such a person would come to testify under oath that she doesn't recall anything and would have no notes regarding such an important and politically sensitive matter!
https://www.hilltimes.com/2017/02/08/top-100-zita-astravas-trouble-shooter/95534



 
[quote author=Rifleman62]



From the Comments to the article:

In the attached article, Astravas is described by someone who knew her well that she is a ""nose-to-the- grindstone, don’t-miss-a-detail, don’t-drop-a-thing worker". Funny that such a person would come to testify under oath that she doesn't recall anything and would have no notes regarding such an important and politically sensitive matter!
https://www.hilltimes.com/2017/02/08/top-100-zita-astravas-trouble-shooter/95534
[/quote]

Funny isn't the word I would use.

Maybe I'm falling for some kind of conspiracy theory or a cleverly worded defense but just what I'm reading in this thread the government and DND sure aren't coming across as honest and transparent to me.
 
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