Vice-admiral’s removal from post remains a mystery
Mystery surrounds firing of vice-admiral
On the morning of Monday, Jan. 9, four unmarked police cars arrived at ViceAdmiral Mark Norman’s modest home in the Ottawa suburb of Orléans.
Norman, the secondhighest-ranking officer in the Canadian military, was standing in the driveway, about to take his wife to work.
The plainclothes RCMP officers asked Norman to go back into the house, and for the next five to six hours they interrogated the viceadmiral, seizing his computers and cellphones.
The RCMP’s arrival at Norman’s home set in motion the removal of one of the most respected officers in the Canadian Forces, for reasons the Liberal government has yet to acknowledge.
Hours after the RCMP went to Norman’s home, Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Jon Vance removed the vice-admiral from his position, a move Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau say they fully support.
The handling of the matter has raised questions about fairness and due process, and about whether Norman — who has not been charged with anything — will ever be able to rebuild his reputation.
On Thursday, Norman’s lawyer, Marie Henein, released a statement in which the officer unequivocally denied any wrongdoing.
“He has at all times served his country honourably and with the sole objective of advancing the national interest and the protection of Canada,” said Henein, a high-profile lawyer with a reputation for getting her clients acquitted.
“It would be a profound disservice to us all if a national hero and widely respected Canadian who has served under numerous governments was caught in the bureaucratic crossfire.”
The message, say Norman’s supporters, was clear — the vice-admiral has no intention of being the fall-guy for the problems Canada’s shipbuilding program has faced since the Liberals came to power, intending instead to fight to preserve his record of 36 years of unblemished service to this country.
But what is Norman actually being accused of doing? At this point, nothing officially.
Industry representatives and military officers said the issue is not about the unauthorized release of classified documents but about the spread of information within the industry on the state of the country’s shipbuilding projects. (Those individuals asked not to be named because they are not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.)
Two projects in particular have had high-profile struggles: the multibillion-dollar Canadian Surface Combatant program, which has been plagued by delays and other issues, and Davie Shipbuilding’s plan to convert a commercial vessel into a resupply ship for the Royal Canadian Navy. The Liberals had hoped to cancel the Davie project when they came to power, but balked at the financial penalties they would incur under the terms of the deal negotiated by the previous Conservative government.
Was Norman keeping companies in the loop about the government’s shipbuilding projects and, if so, is that an offence?
Retired navy captain Kevin Carle told Postmedia it is not uncommon for senior officers to have informal discussions with industry players about program requirements and updates; that way, Carle said, the industry is able to prepare for the capabilities the navy might ask to be provided in the future.
“Norman was also on the record telling Canadians about his concerns about the lack of money for shipbuilding,” said Carle, who knows the vice-admiral but didn’t serve with him.
In December 2015, Norman told the CBC that the federal government had seriously misjudged the amount of money needed to build the Canadian Surface Combatants, the cost for which had grown from an initial $14 billion to more than $30 billion — and as much as $42 billion with added costs. The Canadian public had not been given accurate information about the growing price of the surface combatants, he told then-CBC journalist James Cudmore in an interview (Cudmore is now an adviser to defence minister Harjit Sajjan).
The higher costs, Norman said, were the result of a lack of maturity and capacity in Canada’s shipbuilding sector, from both navy and government officials and industry players. “There was a lot of guessing and speculation going on. And to be quite blunt, we got a lot of it wrong,” Norman told CBC.
In addition, Norman privately raised concerns the Royal Canadian Navy might not get as many ships as it needs because of how the shipbuilding plan was devised. His concerns were well known inside the Liberal government.
Henein’s statement about Norman being “caught in the bureaucratic crossfire” suggests a belief that internal fighting over the shipbuilding program may have been a factor in Vance’s decision to remove him.
Norman’s unexplained removal also raises other questions. Among those: ❚ Since no criminal charges had been laid, why didn’t Gen. Vance consider moving Norman to another position? Vance has declined to comment.
❚ Sources told Postmedia that Vance knew almost from the beginning that the investigation into Norman was not related to national security concerns. Sajjan did not acknowledge publicly that Norman’s removal was not related to national security until a week later. Norman’s supporters say the silence on that point from the Liberal government and the military significantly damaged the vice-admiral’s reputation. Sajjan has declined to comment on that question.
❚ The Canadian Forces claims it can’t talk about the case to protect Norman’s privacy. If so, why did it release to the media Vance’s letter detailing Norman’s removal? The military has declined to comment.
❚ Vance has told military officers he has zero tolerance for leaks. But military public affairs officers say Vance came up with a process the general has called the “weaponization of public affairs,” which includes the leaking of information to journalists deemed “friendly” to the Canadian Forces. In a September 2015 interview with the Ottawa Citizen, Vance acknowledged using the term but denied it was about strategically leaking information. Norman’s supporters question whether a double-standard is at play.
❚ The Liberals obtained confidential information about the shipbuilding program while still in opposition. Norman’s supporters question why he seems to have been singled out when others in Ottawa, from journalists to lobbyists to political parties, have obtained sensitive shipbuilding information in the past and without any apparent police investigation.
Vance has characterized Norman’s removal as temporary but has provided no timelines for his return.
Carle says it’s unclear how long it could take for the details of this case to become known, if ever. “This is an unprecedented situation ... This is something that’s not going to go away anytime soon.”