True North Report： Trudeau on the wrong side of another prosecution
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Summary
The case against Mark Norman bears many similarities to the SNC-Lavalin case, in that both involve public corruption charges brought by the government against a prominent executive of a prominent company. And yet, the government has now dropped the charges against him. Why? And why?
Transcript
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Good afternoon Canada. Welcome to another edition of the True North Report. My name
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is Andrew Lawton with you for the next little while as we talk about how Justin
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Trudeau's government has once again found itself in the midst of a public
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prosecution of a very high-profile nature and once again Justin Trudeau's
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government has put itself on the wrong side of said public prosecution. Although
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a little bit different there are a lot of similarities between the case against
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Vice Admiral Mark Norman and the case against SNC-Lavalin, the case that we've
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been talking about now for some months. And I want to bring this up because we see
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the complete and utter hypocrisy from the Justin Trudeau government on this file.
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So we'll talk about all that as the stream goes on. If you're tuning in from
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wherever in the world it is from which you are tuning, I think that's the proper
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way, all of those preposition stuff, all that preposition stuff. Let me know in the
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chat what's going on and where you're watching from and what it is you think
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about this. Jean or Jean, I think it's Jean, I hope I'm correct, says good
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afternoon. Well good afternoon Jean or Jean, Jean rather it's great to have you
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tuned in here. And to everyone else thank you very much. You know I want to bring up
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the parallel between SNC and Mark Norman because they show that the government is
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not above putting itself into these things and doing so despite the
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political consequences of it. So SNC, which is still going on, we know Justin
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Trudeau tried to pressure the Attorney General at the time, Jody Wilson-Raybould,
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to basically intervene in an ongoing prosecution with the purpose of
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abandoning it, entering into some deferred prosecution agreement and letting it so
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the company could basically get away with its, well get away with its bribing,
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get away with its misconduct. That was what Trudeau was trying to get Jody Wilson-Raybould to do,
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that was what Michael Wernick on Trudeau's urging was trying to get Jody Wilson-Raybould
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to do. And the federal government, which has long-standing ties, the Liberal Party
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specifically, long-standing ties to the SNC-Lavalin apparatus, was intervening to
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protect this company. So then you go to the Mark Norman case and it's the opposite,
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where this prosecution was ongoing up until a couple days ago, and we'll talk about what happened
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there, and the government decided to push, I'd say push for it. The government was, it sounded like
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politically intervening to drive the narrative that Mark Norman had in some way disgraced his country
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and his uniform, which the more we learned, we learned could not be further from the truth.
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And it's a complicated case, and a convoluted case, and one that goes back quite a while.
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He was charged in March of 2018, so about a year and two months ago, and as of two days ago,
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federal prosecutors are abandoning the breach of trust case. They're saying, nope,
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they have not gone so far as to exonerate him, though, and I find this part interesting, but they
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have said that they do not believe there is a reasonable prospect of conviction. And one question
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that I think is incredibly valid here, apart from why drop the charges, is why were they brought against
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him in the first place? And this question there's no real answer for that doesn't ultimately go back
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to Justin Trudeau. You know, Christy Blatchford wrote in the National Post this blurb that I think
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is relevant here. She writes, one of the prosecution's biggest hurdles was improving one of what are
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called the essential elements of the offense of breach of trust, in particular that Norman had the
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intent of using his office for a purpose other than the public good. That usually translates to having
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had a corrupt or dishonest intention, and yet the government has never alleged that Norman personally
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benefited in any way from his alleged leaking. The leaking, of course, allegation that he leaked
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cabinet documents regarding a $700 million shipbuilding deal, and I think $700 billion is pretty much what
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his legal bills are up to now. But there was never any instance of bribery that was alleged, there was
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never anything untoward, he wasn't trading secrets, he was alleged to have leaked it, but there's no
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evidence that he did so for a purpose other than the public good, if he did exactly what's being
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described. And what's so dangerous here is that we have from Norman a long-standing relationship with
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the previous conservative government and conservative cabinet, and then the prosecution comes under the
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current liberal government. And that's not just, I mean, some cases that's just timing, I get that, but it's very
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difficult to not draw a line between what Trudeau may have thought was an allegiance issue, despite the
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fact that Mark Norman has never been anything other than a fair and honest and completely capable public
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servant. He's exactly what you'd expect of a vice admirable admiral, an admirable admiral, if you will,
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and he's exactly what you demand of it. So again, the point that I drive here is that Trudeau has found
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himself on the wrong side of another public prosecution. In the case of SNC-Lavalin, he's trying to intervene to
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get his buddies off, and in the case of Mark Norman, he's aggressively pushing to get his enemy
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prosecuted, tried, and ultimately convicted. And I don't know where he was hoping it would go.
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You know, I want to read a little bit about what led to him
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getting the charge dropped in the first place. And this is a CBC headline published
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on the evening of May 8th. So that's yesterday evening.
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Information from former conservative cabinet ministers helped put an end to Norman case.
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And the Crown, so the people that were tasked with prosecuting him, said this,
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it's a complex legal charge. We didn't have the entire information.
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Then why were you doing it in the first place? If you didn't have the entire information,
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why were you driving this case initially? And here's what the CBC story reveals.
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The Crown's case began to collapse in March, so two months ago, partly under the weight of
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information from several former conservative cabinet ministers and staffers. They were key
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players in the previous government's $668 million deal to have the Davies shipyard in Lévis, Quebec,
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convert and lease a supply ship to the Navy, some of whom were interviewed by a lawyer representing the
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former vice chief of the defense staff. So that's Norman's lawyer, Marie Hennon, or one of her colleagues.
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But all of these key players that were involved in the case, I want to read a line about this.
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These individuals were never questioned by the RCMP or the Crown in the run-up to a breach of trust
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So you have these key witnesses, none of whom were asked questions about the police agency responsible
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for charging Norman, the Crown responsible for prosecuting that charge. And we're supposed to
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believe that this was a charge that was decided on after reviewing all the evidence and determining
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it was appropriate. No, it sounds like they steamrolled ahead in this and it took them 14 months.
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14 months to be able to say, oh, you know, we didn't have all the information, let's walk this back.
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They should have known this right away. They should have known this before charging him,
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as a matter of fact. Libby writes, the government is paying his legal bills after having him charged.
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Yes, this was something mentioned by Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan when the announcement was made
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that the federal government preemptively offered this guy his legal bills. And I want to
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explain for a moment why that is more cynical than benevolent. And first off, Norman didn't even
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ask yet. He probably would have asked, but he didn't even ask. He actually learned about it
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from a reporter. Someone was saying, I heard this on the radio. I haven't heard the clip yet.
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But he was basically being asked a question. He was speaking and someone said, you know,
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the government's doing this. Oh, really? What? What? Like he had no idea. So he didn't even ask for this
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or push for it yet. And the federal government saying, okay, we'll give you these, these legal
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bills. And a statement that came from the chief of defense staff suggests that they are trying to
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find a way to get Vice Admiral Norman returning to his post, which it's really upsetting. This is a guy
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who had had his life destroyed, his life's work put in the, basically down the barrel of a gun.
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And thankfully, people that knew him, and had worked with him in the past, were very much able
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to attest to his character. And I do genuinely think that helped him. I mean, Andrew Leslie, the
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liberal MP, is going to or was going to be testifying on Norman's behalf. And this is the former
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Lieutenant General, if memory serves, I might have the rank wrong, I think it's Lieutenant General,
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that was going to say, oh, look, I mean, the liberals are against this guy, I'm for him.
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Jason Kenney was going to stand up for him as well. This is a guy who had bipartisan support,
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a lot of respect across the aisle. And he was basically completely screwed. So there was a GoFundMe
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page for him that raised about $400,000. And now the government's paying for his legal bills,
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as Libby points out. But the reason I think the government is doing that is because the government
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knows that if it does not preemptively try to make this go away, what's going to happen is he's going
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to sue for malicious prosecution, for legal bills, for reputational damages, I mean, there are any number
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of things. And I don't think the federal government wants to open that can of worms, knowing that
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there's probably evidence of malicious prosecution, there's probably evidence of the federal government
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trying to conspire against him, or at the very least, of trying to make an example of him. And I
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think that the defense minister is trying to preempt that as much as possible by saying, all right,
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just take the lawyer fees. But I truly hope that he continues to fight. I mean, as a taxpayer,
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I don't like the idea of the federal government having to shell out money. But in terms of standing
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up for what's right, and standing up on principle, I honestly think that this is where the case has to
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go. I mean, look, Omar Cotter, for crying out loud, got $10.5 million from the federal government,
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and he killed a soldier. Mark Norman is a soldier, and remains a soldier. And I'm not saying he's
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deserving of $10 million, but he's deserving of something. And what's so baffling about this case,
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and what I find so frustrating about it is that the rationale that the Trudeau government used
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when it gave Omar Cotter the $10.5 million was, oh, well, you know, if he was suing us, and we were
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defending, and well, if we had kept on defending, then it would have cost more, and we might not have
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won anyway. So by their rationale, there's no point in fighting anything, you just have to pay him to go
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away. Well, here's one case where I think someone is probably deserving of that happening. And that's the
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case of Admiral Norman. Corey writes here, Jason Kenney knows the deal. Yeah, Jason Kenney was in the
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government when this was all happening. Dave writes, most people don't realize the dangers of
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government deciding who gets prosecuted or not. Dictatorships do that. Yeah, the fact is politicians
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should not be in the midst of any of these cases and any of these public prosecutions. But now you can't
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have a public prosecution in Canada that doesn't have some level of political oversight. And I want
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to read a line from Trudeau here, that I don't think you'll be able to get through without laughing.
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He was asked in a scrum at Parliament Hall, about whether the Prime Minister's office was involved.
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And he said that the prosecution of the Norman case was, quote, entirely independent of his office,
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and that he has, quote, confidence that the work being done by the director of public prosecution is
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good. So Justin Trudeau, who tried to get Jody Wilson-Raybould to interfere in the director of
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public prosecution's work, is now saying that the PMO is entirely independent of the public prosecutor's
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office, and he is complete confident in her ability to make the right decisions. And he expects Canadians
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to buy this. He expects Canadians to believe this, that, you know, the PMO, which just three months ago
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was trying to interfere in a public prosecution, has now decided to let these things be completely
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independent. So I find that bizarre. And you can't deny the parallels that exist between the SNC-Lavalin
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case, and this case with Mark Norman. And no one gets that more than Marie Hennon does, who was
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Norman's lawyer, is Norman's lawyer, perhaps. And when she did that press conference, sitting beside
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Vice Admiral Norman, she was able to throw, as the kids say these days, so much shade at Justin Trudeau,
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it's not even funny. And you should actually watch the 30 minutes of this, because I wanted to watch 30
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seconds of it. And then I ended up watching the whole thing here. And what happens is Marie Hennon sits
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down, and I'm going to read the exact quote. Again, you have to watch this. I can't play clips easily,
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so I'll just read it. You should see it. But she was talking about the Norman case. But before so, she said,
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before we get started, I'd just like to introduce the all-female team that represented Vice Admiral Norman.
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And then she said, fortunately, Vice Admiral Norman didn't fire the females he hired.
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And she didn't mention Justin Trudeau. She didn't mention SNC-Lavalin. But the prevailing sense is that
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she was very much invoking Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott, and their terminations by Justin
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Trudeau, in taking aim at Trudeau. Because for Norman, this is entirely personal. Trudeau had, for whatever
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reason, a vendetta against Norman. Maybe he just doesn't like the military, as Stephen Harper charged
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in the past. Maybe he thinks Norman was too cozy with the conservatives. Maybe he just doesn't like
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the cut of his jib, or whatever. Maybe he doesn't like the Navy. Maybe the YMCA, you know, traumatized
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him or something as a child. But whatever the reason, Trudeau did not want Norman. And this whole
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prosecution seems to be a shambolic attempt to force him out of a job for nothing other than petty
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political grievances. Carly writes, this is another example of Trudeau having to get his way all the
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time. Yeah, but it's one thing to be a petulant child and want to get your way all the time. It's
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quite another to treat institutions that are supposed to be independent, like they are your own
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personal servants, which is how Trudeau seems to be treating the judiciary, including the supposedly
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independent attorney general and director of public prosecutions. You know, when Hennon continued along
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this, she said, the decision to stay this prosecution was discretion exercised by prosecutors
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and the director of public prosecutions unimpacted by any political considerations, as it should be.
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So again, she takes aim at Trudeau's record as someone who has demonstrably manipulated or tried
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to manipulate public prosecutions in the past, and says, this is how things are supposed to work.
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Politics are supposed to stay out of the prosecutorial process. So Marie Hennon
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gets it. Marie Hennon gets it. Mark Norman gets it. And this is one of these cases where it seems
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almost everyone but Justin Trudeau gets it. And that a guy like Mark Norman has such bipartisan
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support, from Andrew Leslie to Jason Kenney to Lisa McLeod, a guy who's tremendously well-liked
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left and right, but finds himself shouldering the liberal government's very poor approach to military
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issues. And, you know, I don't know if the Crown in this case is just utterly incompetent, or genuinely
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was operating with political considerations front and center. It sounds like a little bit of both,
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quite frankly, when they were able to somehow have a charge leveled by RCMP without any oversight as to
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the scope of evidence, without interviewing key witnesses, people that over a year ago would have
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been able to say, well, hang on a minute, you've got to pay attention to this. And I don't yet know
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what the information is. I don't know if Canadians will ever find out what this exculpatory information
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was that was put in front of the Crown. But suffice it to say, whatever it was, would have been available
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a year ago. It would have been available a year ago. Remember, he was charged in March, the investigation
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started before then. So it's not even just a year and two months, it's a year and three, four months,
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perhaps, that this should have been brought up by the people tasked with charging this man. But instead,
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it was charged now and figure it all out later. And I'm glad that in this case, Trudeau has lost.
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But for the sake of Vice Admiral Norman, I'm glad that he's been vindicated. Remember,
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the prosecution tried to be a little bit iffy about this and say, oh, well, you know, we're not
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saying what you did was right, but we're saying we can't prosecute you. Whereas the judge was very
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much forceful in saying, look, you had a plea of not guilty. In the eyes of this court, you are innocent
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and walk away as such. And I think on that, Norman has been vindicated. And you know what, it's a good
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thing that his reputation was held in such high esteem and Trudeau's in such a considerably lower
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level of esteem. We've got to wrap up. But a big thank you to all who tuned in here. We will have
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more to talk about next week. But on a bit of a programming note, I am on Thursday headed to the
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United Kingdom for the Tommy Robinson contempt of court hearing. Again, when you talk about abuse of
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process and malicious prosecution, some parallels in that case as well. But we're also going to be
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at True North trying to cover a press freedom summit that's being held in the UK by Canada
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and the UK in July. And I wrote about this and did a video about it last week. It's going to be an
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important case. We're crowdfunding our way there because we don't have that CBC $1.3 billion subsidy
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or the $600 million media slush fund. So if you care about media freedom, and if you care about the
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government not being able to just cast everything it doesn't like aside as fake news, and you can
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contribute a few bucks to that, please do. You can find the information at tnc.news or shoot me an
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email andrew at andrewlotton.ca and I can get you hooked up with all the right information there.
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But in the meantime, have a great weekend, Canada. Thank you. God bless and good day.