Feb 15 2019 — Murray Brewster — CBC — 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. The remarks — made on Sept. 18, 2018 and attributed to PCO lawyer Paul Shuttle — were contained in prosecution notes entered into evidence at […]
Feb 15 2019 — Murray Brewster — Wounded and injured soldiers — both serving and retired — have been given the option of postponing the filing of disability claims until after the Liberal government’s pension-for-life plan is implemented on April 1, CBC News has learned. Those who file a disability claim before April 1 do not get to opt for a pension-for-life. […]
Feb 11 2019 — Murray Brewster — CBC — A pretrial hearing in the breach-of-trust case against Vice-Admiral Mark Norman took a sudden political turn Monday when the defence alleged that prosecutors have been talking trial strategy with the bureaucratic arm of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office. The federal government is fighting defence requests for the release of notes from meetings between officials at […]
Feb 8 2019 — Murray Brewster — CBC — A long-awaited contract to design the navy’s next generation of warships — the kick-off to a $60 billion project — will be formalized in Halifax today, even as a challenge of the contract process goes forward in Federal Court and critics question how completely the bids were evaluated. All of the paperwork for the design […]
Feb 5 2019 — Murray Brewster — CBC — The Liberal government has decided to pull out all the stops on the construction of the navy’s planned permanent supply ships — a move that’s raised questions about how quickly the Canadian Coast Guard will get a critical oceanographic science vessel. Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) issued a statement Tuesday that announced the re-sequencing […]
Feb 2 2019 — Murray Brewster — CBC — What was Norman told to do by the Harper government regarding the $668M supply ship leasing plan? On the surface, the arguments made this week in the criminal case against Vice-Admiral Mark Norman may have seemed as dull as dishwater. Defence and Crown lawyers spent days arguing over who searched for what documents and where. […]
Feb 1 2019 — Murray Brewster — CBC — The Canadian International Trade Tribunal has dismissed a complaint by one of the companies that was competing for the job of designing and helping to build the navy’s next generation of warships. Alion Science and Technology Corp. and its subsidiary, Alion Canada, filed the complaint in November and asked that the signing of the contract […]
Jan 30 2019 — Murray Brewster — CBC — 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 […]
Jan 29 2019 — Murray Brewster — CBC — 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 […]
Jan 17 2019 — Murray Brewster — CBC — A proposed class-action lawsuit has been filed against the federal government over the $165-million accounting blunder by Veterans Affairs Canada, CBC News has learned. The court action, which has yet to be certified, was filed on Tuesday by former soldier Dennis Manuge, who successfully took the Department of National Defence to court a few years […]
Jan 16 2019 — Murray Brewster — CBC — A Quebec-based business association claiming to represent over 1,000 companies inside and outside the province is launching a high-profile campaign to convince the Liberal government to reopen the oft-maligned National Shipbuilding Strategy. The group is demanding the federal government include the Davie shipyard, in Levis, Que., in the policy and plans to make it a […]
Jan 15 2019 — Murray Brewster — CBC — One of the first challenges for Jody Wilson-Raybould, Canada’s new minister of Veterans Affairs, is going to be dispelling the (partly self-generated) notion that she has been cast into a kind of political purgatory. In fairness, it’s an impression created partly by the preoccupation of Ottawa’s chattering classes with who’s hot and who’s not on […]
Jan 11 2019 — Murray Brewster — CBC — It was an incredibly simple (and incredibly daft) mistake — and it led to a $165 million federal fiscal faux-pas. In 2001, the Liberal government of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien made what appeared to be an innocuous change to federal tax forms. It separated federal and provincial tax exemptions, shuffling the basic personal tax credit […]
Jan 10 2019 — Murray Brewster — CBC — It’s often said that timing is everything in politics. Scott Brison, the long-time Liberal cabinet minister with Conservative roots, has decided it’s time to bow out. He spent his farewell round of political interviews on Thursday defending the timing of his departure, coming as it does following allegations of political interference related to the criminal […]
Jan 8 2019 — Murray Brewster — CBC — The Trudeau government can’t afford to buy ultra-modern warships and advanced warplanes at the same time, given the limits of federal finances, a new research paper argues. The study, written for the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy, says that — contrary to the assurances offered in the government’s defence policy — Ottawa will […]