VAdm Norman - Supply Ship contract: Legal fight

[Cloud Cover]

PCO lawyer asked prosecutor if there was a way to 'engineer issues' in Norman case, court hears

Judge hearing breach of trust case reads out redacted comments from prosecution notes during pre-trial hearing

Murray Brewster CBC News Posted: Feb 15, 2019 1:04 PM ET

The top lawyer at the Privy Council Office apparently asked federal prosecutors if it was possible to "engineer the issues at stake" in the criminal case against Vice-Admiral Mark Norman.

And here is another example of Privy Council Clerk Michael Wernick at work again. Is engineering a weak and spurious criminal prosecution and with this revelation now possibly a malicious legal prosecution part of the PCO duty to support and promote the government agenda?? 

 

[Rifleman62]

There are no notes. Remember?

 

[Eagle_Eye_View]

I hope he wins and sue the government for every penny!

 

[Fishbone Jones]

I hope he wins and sue the government for every penny!

That may be all that's left in the treasury after the grits give it all away to unsupervised humanitarian projects with no accounting or due diligence.

 

[FSTO]

As part of the PM 1 course our group was briefed on the workings of Treasury Board (TB) and the Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS) in regards to getting contracts passed by them. Our briefer was a young lass from TBS who led us through the hoops we have to jump through to get projects approved by TB. When the project gets presented to TB, the board can accept it, accept it with reservations, reject it (very rarely happens) or send it back for further work (not often because that shows that the Project Manager and the TBS did not do their jobs). Anyway at the Q&A I asked if TB has ever gone back to relook at a project that has already been passed by a previous board or a previous government TB. I specifically referenced the iAOR. She said that AFASK a TB President has never asked to review a previously passed project.

Interesting......or am I just a bit tin foily?
 

 

[Navy_Pete]

As part of the PM 1 course our group was briefed on the workings of Treasury Board (TB) and the Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS) in regards to getting contracts passed by them. Our briefer was a young lass from TBS who led us through the hoops we have to jump through to get projects approved by TB. When the project gets presented to TB, the board can accept it, accept it with reservations, reject it (very rarely happens) or send it back for further work (not often because that shows that the Project Manager and the TBS did not do their jobs). Anyway at the Q&A I asked if TB has ever gone back to relook at a project that has already been passed by a previous board or a previous government TB. I specifically referenced the iAOR. She said that AFASK a TB President has never asked to review a previously passed project.

Interesting......or am I just a bit tin foily?

It's too bad you had a young analyst; when I did that course about six years ago we had a grey hair mandarin that was semi retired teaching it and knew everything about the paper and actual process. Some of them are okay, but others have a lot more confidence than experience, so would take a lot of grains of salt with whatever she said.

She wouldn't be wrong though; the review was being done about the contract award and not the budget or project itself.  For big enough dollar values a notification goes back to TB with the actual dollar value of the contract being awarded based on the bid price (vice the estimate from the project for that specific item).  That's a different approval gate, and sometimes is a condition of the project budget approval (to come back for a last check before signing the contract). That one can be a pain as the bids normally have a time limit, and if you hit some kind of review snag (ie the Minister leaves, or it's an election), and feels amateurish to go back to the company to confirm you can get an extension on the bid price (for another 30 days or whatever).

Still can't get a straight answer, but I believe the Harper govt actually approved the iAOR contract award (as a sole source) under a cabinet exception before they transferred, but not sure if it was actually signed.  If they had canceled it, guessing we would have paid out a bunch of money to get no capability, and think it was in one of the stories for the VAdm trials where the notes from a civil servant showed the only discussion points where actually around the talking points and media lines for the project, so they were basically stalling to repackage it as their own idea.

 

[Kirkhill]

Interesting line from today's testimony

Tonda MacCharles
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@TondaMacC
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Raitt asks if Drouin thinks its appropriate for the staff of PMO to have convos with "your prosecutors" or DPP.
Drouin says I don't think so, but suggests it's doubtful they did.

 

[Kirkhill]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/mark-norman-davie-shipyard-breach-trust-1.5014538

Norman's defence accuses Trudeau PMO of attempting to direct prosecution - 11 Feb 19
  'The prosecution should not be discussing trial strategy with the (PMO's) right hand person' - Mainville

The essence of the article above is the the Judge's remark:

"The prosecution should not be discussing trial strategy with the Prime Minister's Office's right-hand person," she said, referring to the PCO legal counsel. "By all appearances, this is a more direct influencing of the prosecution. The attorney general is entirely bypassed. The Prime Minister's Office, via its right arm the PCO, is dealing directly with the (Public Prosecution Service of Canada). And the prosecution service is allowing this to happen."

That prompted a cutting remark from the judge hearing Norman's case.

"So much for the independence of the PPSC," said Judge Heather Perkins-McVey.

Then there is the Minister of Justice/PMO/SNC mess.



Possibly it's me, but compare the CBC story at link above to the National Post's article. Seems the CBC article left some of the  (damning) back and forth out.

https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/alleged-political-interference-in-mark-norman-case-more-concerning-than-snc-lavalin-accusations-defence-lawyer?video_autoplay=true

Alleged political interference in Mark Norman case ‘more concerning’ than SNC-Lavalin accusations: defence - 11 Feb 19
  Lawyer Christine Mainville told the court that prosecutors should not be talking strategy with the Privy Council Office, which she
    called the ‘right arm’ to the PMO

See previous comment by DM Justice Drouin in JWR testimony.

 

[The Bread Guy]

PCO lawyer asked prosecutor if there was a way to 'engineer issues' in Norman case, court hears ...

Yet another way of saying "we never asked for anything against the law, just a solution," or, put another way ...

 

[Rifleman62]

https://globalnews.ca/national/program/the-roy-green-show

The Roy Green show on radio today is to have a discussion re this case. Guest is a CF member (retired???).

 

[Rifleman62]

Believe this fits here due to what the former VCDS has been charged with. Mods can move it as appropriate. This was not written by a certain reporter, it is a publicly available Charles Adler podcast. Starts at the 1:10 mark.

Chris Adler podcast

"90 Minutes"!!

Read the NP.

Mod edit: name removal

 

[ModlrMike]

Now we know the lifespan of confidential information in Ottawa.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

The walls are coming down around the PMO's ears and they are oblivious. Business as usual, nothing to see here, move along.

The ultimate height of government arrogance and attitude.

 

[Blackadder1916]

Believe this fits here due to what the former VCDS has been charged with. Mods can move it as appropriate. This was not written by a certain reporter, it is a publicly available Charles Adler podcast. Starts at the 1:10 mark.

Now we know the lifespan of confidential information in Ottawa.

As much as I would like to comment about the substance of the issue raised in Rifleman62's post, a review of the guideline thread concerning this journalist seems pretty clear that there should be no discussion about or reference to him regardless of the source material.

. . . no reference be made of any sort to him or his work, from here forward.

I would suggest that the Mods delete these few messages as they add nothing substantive to the topic discussion.  Of course we can still complain about Irving and the government in general.

Mod edit: name removal.

 

[Scott]

Thanks for the various reports on this subject. It's been reviewed and hashed over with Mike.

We're relaxing the standard in this one case as it does not refer to specific work of an individual, or draw from files from same.

Names will be edited out as they are not to be hosted on this site, per the guideline.

Thanks all.

Scott

 

[The Bread Guy]

A bit more ...

A federal procurement official charged with breach of trust was told by the RCMP roughly two years ago that he also was in a suspect in the same investigation into the alleged leaking of cabinet secrets which had ensnared Vice-Admiral Mark Norman.

The lawyer for Matthew Matchett revealed that fact in court Tuesday as a date for a preliminary hearing was set in Ontario Superior Court.

Matthew Day tore a strip off the Crown saying his client has yet to see all of the evidence gathered against him despite the time it has taken to investigate. 

"We've been waiting for two years for the other shoe to drop," Day told the court.

"Disclosure seems to have been ready in August 2018. We received it in February approaching the two-year anniversary of when our client was informed he was a suspect in this matter."

The detail is significant because lawyers for Norman, the former vice-chief of the defence staff, and the Conservative opposition have publicly questioned why it took so long to charge Matchett and have sought records related to the handling his case.

Prosecutors have disclosed — in Day's words — a "voluminous" number of documents, but "we don't have it all yet."

The preliminary inquiry will run over three days, starting Oct. 23 ...

More @ link

 

[The Bread Guy]

Remember this the next time someone says, "you have to keep your briefing note to 2/3/4 pages" ...

Vice-Admiral Mark Norman’s lawyer says she wants to see a secret 60-page memo the federal government’s top bureaucrat penned to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about her client’s case.

Lawyer Marie Henein revealed the existence of Privy Council clerk Michael Wernick’s memo to Trudeau on Thursday as Norman’s breach-of-trust case returned for another day of pre-trial hearings.

The revelation is the latest twist in Henein’s months-long fight for thousands of government documents she says are essential to prove his innocence.

Subpoenas were issued last month for emails, BlackBerry messages and other internal communications from Trudeau, Wernick and other top officials about Norman as Henein seeks records to prove political interference in the case.

Henein told the court that she recently received a copy of Wernick’s memo to the prime minister dated Oct. 24, 2018 as part of a larger trove of documents but she said the contents were completely blacked out.

“We received in the material that’s come to us — in completely redacted form for solicitor-client privilege — a memo from Michael Wernick to the prime minister,” Henein told Justice Heather Perkins-McVey.

“Mr. Wernick is not a lawyer, I don’t believe,” Perkins-McVey replied, though she quickly added: “I’m not sure.”

It was at that point that Henein said she planned to present arguments on why the contents of that memo and others obtained from the government should be released ...

More @ link

 

[Cloud Cover]

Common  interest privilege, otherwise known as litigation privilege, attaches  to communications or documents prepared during or in anticipation of litigation, and for the dominant purpose of preparing for such actual or anticipated litigation. This document likely falls into that category.

As I understand it, the document was not just sent to the PMO but the PMO lawyers.

 

[YZT580]

I can understand that correspondence from a lawyer to his client or to potential witnesses would be privileged but a memo from a civil servant to the PM even if carbon copied to a lawyer should not be entitled to the same courtesy.  They aren't lawyers themselves. 

 

[Cloud Cover]

Lawyers can only be expected to be experts in the law.
The giving and receiving of legal advice is solicitor and client privileged. There is obviously much more than that to most litigation.

So, for example, in the course of preparing for litigation about a structural defect with a bridge, a lawyer probably needs some understanding about an engineering issue, they will request a report to be prepared to give an opinion or explanation that may be used in creating and developing a theory of litigation. Like a game plan. Obviously, a clients game plan developed by a lawyer with other parties is going to be subject to some form of litigation protection. It may sound devious and devilish, but that's the way it works in common law litigation.

The main difference between solicitor client privilege and litigation privilege is that solicitor client privilege last forever unless waived by the client voluntarily. Litigation privilege ends with the final decision of a case (with a few odd exceptions such as Cabinet Confidence!!!)