Where are the Trudeau government's priorities？
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Summary
In the wake of the announcement that Mark Norman won't be charged with a breach of trust charge, there are two questions that remain: Why did the Privy Council Office refer the case to the RCMP in the first place? And why did it take so long for the prosecution to drop the charge?
Transcript
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We're learning a few more drips and drabs about the Mark Norman affair as the days go by,
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but there are two big questions that still remain, and I think they're the most pressing
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ones that we need to get an answer to. They both relate to things that Marie Heinen said
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at that press conference with Mark Norman right after the news broke that the prosecutor had
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decided to stay the charge. And those two questions are, one, why did the PCO, the Privy Council Office,
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refer the charges to the RCMP in the first place? So this was not a situation where the RCMP was for
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some reason independently poking around into the issue of military procurement and naval deals and
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so forth and then stumbled upon what they thought was a breach of trust issue and then decided to
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lay charges. I mean, that never happens in crimes like this. Somebody has to call up the RCMP and say,
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hey guys, take a look at this. Maybe we have a problem. And we know that the PCO are the ones
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that actually did that in this case. The PCO being the top bureaucrats who report directly
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to Justin Trudeau, that office that was up until very recently held by Michael Wernick.
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Why do that? Because when the PCO does it, it's somewhat similar to regular folks just calling
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up the cops and saying, oh, there might be a crime going on, but there's the added weight of the fact
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it is coming from the Privy Council Office. So it cannot be seen as a sort of disinterested phone
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call. It's always inherently going to look like some version of political interference when the top
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bureaucrat office tied to the PMO picks up the phone and makes that call. So number one, why did they do
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that? Because this issue, this breach of trust issue, clearly was one that was open to interpretation.
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So much so that when the prosecutor took another look at it, they decided their interpretation was
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now revised, downgraded, and that they weren't going ahead with the prosecution. They were going to stay
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the charge. This is not like a case when you find a dead body and then you absolutely must find out,
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well, who killed the body? Who's responsible for that? To charge someone on a breach of trust related
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to cabinet confidences, that is a discretionary choice. You have chosen very much so to pursue
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this case and to go after it. Why did they refer this case and why did they have a dogged pursuit
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of Mark Norman up until it became clear that the case was falling apart? So that's one question we
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don't have the answer to and a very, I think, complex one, but a very important one. Part two,
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also a troubling one. So Mark Norman was suspended for a year without reason, without being charged with
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anything. And then he was charged and the charge hung around for a year until it was stayed. In that
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year when he was suspended, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made some comments on the case. Now
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Procurement Minister Carla Qualtrough, she's already acknowledged that the Prime Minister's comments were
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less than ideal in this situation. But what Trudeau basically said was, well, guys, I think we'll see
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this winding up in court soon, so I shouldn't comment. And you go, well, hold on a second. How do you know
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that? What information do you have where you think this may wind up in court? Because you are not
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supposed to be interfering with the justice system and you're not supposed to know what the prosecutors
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are thinking or about to do and so forth. So perhaps Minister Qualtrough will chalk that up to
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the Prime Minister basically musing on it publicly when he shouldn't have been doing that. That in
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itself is a problem. But why did he feel so vindicated in saying that? So that's one of the big
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questions there to be asked. I mean, ultimately, this whole thing is a study in contrasts and a
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question of proportionality. And what I mean by that is it's very interesting that the government
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has been able to say for the past couple years, oh, these dozens of ISIS guys walking around freely
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on Canadian soil. We can't possibly charge those guys. I mean, we're not going to secure a conviction.
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It's really difficult to get the evidence. We can't do it. So why give it the old college try even?
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Shrug their shoulders. Nothing to see here, folks. With Mark Norman, oh yeah, some documents were seen
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by people they weren't supposed to be. Throw everything at them. Try and lock the guy up,
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which is actually what could have happened. One breach of trust guilty charge can have a five-year
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jail term. Why the discrepancy there? Why the confusion of priorities? Because that's certainly
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what it looks like. And I think Canadians need to keep asking these questions because attempting to
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basically lock up the former head of the Navy on a charge like this and then suddenly dropping it
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and walking away from it all, it's not good. And the public deserve a right. They have a right to know