National Post (National Edition)
Norman lawyers target Trudeau, Butts, Telford
Records needed for abuse-of-process motion
OTTAWA• Lawyers for Vice- Admiral Mark Norman are zeroing in on five top government officials — including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his former top aide Gerald Butts — as they prepare a motion to have the criminal case tossed out of court next month.
On Friday, Norman’s lawyer read out a list of priority people whose records need to be produced ahead of the abuse- of- process motion, scheduled to be heard starting March 25.
Those five people are Trudeau himself; Butts, who was Trudeau’ s principal secretary until resigning earlier this week; Katie Telford, Trudeau’s chief of staff; Michael Wernick, the clerk of the privy council; and Zita Astravas, the former issues manager in the Prime Minister’s Office, and now chief of staff to Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan.
“Those are high priority, in my respectful submission, and should be relatively easy to get through if (the Department of Justice) would provide it to the court to review,” Henein said.
“These requests have been outstanding for some time. I just want to make sure that we’re moving to the top of the list now the material that may be potentially relevant to the abuse.”
The defence has not yet filed its abuse-of-process motion because it is still waiting for disclosure of documents. However, the defence has indicated that political interference allegations will be a major component of the motion when it’s filed.
Norman, once the secondhighest officer in Canada’s military, has been charged with breach of trust for allegedly leaking cabinet secrets.
Last October, his defence lawyers filed subpoenas for all communications between staff in the Privy Council Office and Prime Minister’s Office relating to the investigation and prosecution of Norman. The defence has still not received “a single document” related to that subpoena, Henein told the court.
The delay is in part be- cause the defence has been challenging the thoroughness of the searches. Through witness evidence, the defence has shown that personal devices weren’t being included in the searches, and that the search terms hadn’t included alternate names for Norman sometimes used in documents. The searches were redone after that evidence came to light in December and January.
Rober t MacKinnon, a Justice Department lawyer representing the subpoenaed government departments, told the court his team is working to collect, review and disclose the documents.
“They’ve gone back now in February to go search again, including all personal accounts and personal devices ... all the ( Norman) identifiers that were provided to the court,” he said. “They have to be reviewed for responsiveness and any privileges. So that’s what we’re doing right now. We’re working as fast as we can to get these documents to the court.”
Henein requested that at the very least, the five names she identified be made a priority so they can file their abuse-of-process motion.
“I’m happy to make those five a priority,” MacKinnon said. However, he did not give the court a firm date when those documents would be disclosed.
The court also heard on Friday that witness evidence has still not been fully disclosed, despite the witnesses having been interviewed by the RCMP in January 2016 and Norman’s criminal charges being laid in March 2018. Such evidence, categorized as first- party records that the Crown is obligated to disclose, includes documents and notes the witnesses relied on in giving their statements.
Because some of the material may be covered by cabine t confidence, the judge needs to review it for redactions. Justice Heather Perkins-McVey called it “baffling” that the Crown still has not handed it all over.
“When am I going to get the materials?” she asked. “Time marches on, and these interviews took place in January of 2016.”
The Crown provided the judge with a list of 36 witnesses who have been interviewed by the RCMP, but objected to making the list of names public.
“I’d asked if it not be made an exhibit at this point,” prosecutor John MacFarlane said. “There’s people’s names on this list that may not be witnesses at the trial, there’s some of these witnesses that have retained counsel and, as I stand here, I don’t know if they or their counsel expected their names ( to be public)," he said.
The case is to return to court March 6 for an update. The trial is not scheduled to start until August.
THESE REQUESTS HAVE BEEN OUTSTANDING FOR SOME TIME.