Shipyard was ready to lay off 400 workers
Supply ship documents released
The company that owns one of the country’s largest shipyards was ready to lay off 400 workers to put pressure on Liberal cabinet minister Scott Brison if he followed through with plans to delay the development of a much-needed supply ship for the Canadian navy.
New emails detailing the high-stakes political drama surrounding the acquisition of the interim naval supply ship, which was at the heart of the controversial suspension earlier this year of ViceAdmiral Mark Norman from his post as the Canadian military’s second-in-command, were released Wednesday after legal action by a group of media organizations including Postmedia.
In November 2015, Brison, the Treasury Board president, was pushing for a review of the plan, approved by the previous Conservative government, to convert a commercial vessel into a naval resupply vessel at Davie Shipbuilding in Quebec. The $670-million deal would see the ship leased to the federal government for a five-year period.
But representatives at Davie and affiliated companies worried a review would delay the project indefinitely and eventually scuttle the program. There was also concern that Brison was pushing for the review on behalf of Davie’s rival Irving Shipbuilding, according to the emails.
Alex Vicefield, head of Inocea, the international shipping conglomerate that owns Davie, was ready to raise the stakes because of Brison’s actions. He wrote to company officials and lobbyists that Brison’s desire for an independent review was strange since the project had already been reviewed numerous times by independent agencies brought in by the federal government.
“Sounds like a delay tactic,” Vicefield wrote in a Nov. 19, 2015, email. “If it does transpire to be that, I will do a full page plea in the Globe and Mail to Scott Brison asking that this Nova Scotia minister put his regional bias aside for matters of national security. … then I will lay off 400 guys next week.”
The RCMP alleges Norman provided updates on a Liberal plan to derail the navy’s interim supply ship program to officials with Davie and other affiliated firms. The RCMP alleges Norman did so in the hope of influencing the government to proceed with the delivery of the vessel.
Norman was suspended from his job as vice-chief of the defence staff in January, after the RCMP executed a search warrant on his home. The force has been investigating Norman for over a year, but no charges have been laid against him.
Norman’s lawyer, Marie Henein, has released a statement in which the vice-admiral unequivocally denied any wrongdoing. Instead, she said, Norman has been “caught in the bureaucratic cross-fire.”
The interim supply ship program, known as Project Resolve, is seen by many as being critical to the Royal Canadian Navy since the service has for some time been without the capacity to resupply its warships at sea.
Brison’s officials have denied that the minister’s request for a review was in any way linked to the Irvings, and Irving Shipbuilding has denied allegations of political meddling.
The ship to be converted under Project Resolve had already been delivered to Davie when James D. Irving, co-chief executive officer of Irving Shipbuilding, wrote a Nov. 17, 2015, letter to procurement minister Judy Foote and defence minister Harjit Sajjan. Irving requested that its proposal for a similar vessel, already rejected by the Conservative government, be re-examined.
After receiving Irving’s letter the Liberal government put Project Resolve on hold.
In an email to a naval colleague, Norman complained about what he saw as the “blatant politics” on the file and what he called Irving’s efforts to block Davie. He considered resigning.
Details about the Liberals’ decision to put Project Resolve on hold, as well as Irving’s letter and details of cabinet discussions about the matter, were leaked to the CBC in November 2015. The leak embarrassed the thennew Trudeau government and sparked outrage in Quebec over the potential loss of hundreds of jobs that might result were Davie to lose the ship deal. The Liberals beat a quick retreat and shortly afterward, Project Resolve went ahead.
But the RCMP was brought in to find whoever had embarrassed the government by leaking information.
In an email to Postmedia on Wednesday, Alex Vicefield provided further details about his original email. “At the time, we were already working on the ship as we were under an initial contract. We had around 400 employees onboard. If the project did not proceed, we would have had to lay off those staff.”