Dear editor,
In reply to the June 13 letter Burning question remains in aftermath of Mark Norman affair, writer Ken Kemper, in attempting to defend the Trudeau Liberals by casting aspersions on previous Conservative MPs, only shows his ignorance of the facts.
I have followed this case from the beginning, when Mr. Trudeau on two occasions, stated publicly that vice-admiral Norman would go to court, even before charges were laid and the investigation in its early stage. There is too much background information for me to go into here, but in the interest of truth and to call out people who try to spread “fake news” before the upcoming election, I will make two points.
First, there was a leak of confidential information regarding the Liberals trying to cancel a supply ship contract that was let by the previous government. The RCMP were called in to investigate the source of the leak.
Secondly, former cabinet ministers McKay, O’Toole and Kenny were not in government when the leak occurred and had no information to give the RCMP on that point.
The defence team did their own investigation when preparing for trial and contacted the three prior MPs who offered their information on the facts surrounding the letting of the supply ship contract which they were part of. As far as I can see, the RCMP were not investigating this. Norman worked in the Department of Defence and was not part of any party or government.
Vice-admiral Norman was shamefully treated by those in the Liberal government and in the Defence Department. He was charged without a full investigation, removed from his job, bankrupted, had his life put on hold for two years, and took a tremendous toll on his family, seemingly to teach him a lesson for going ahead with having a supply ship outfitted according to the contract, on time and on budget. How would you like to have six RCMP officers enter your home with a search warrant, confiscate your and your family’s computers, cell phones, pictures, private letters, etc and then have to watch while they sat at your dining room table drinking coffee and laughing while they went through it all for several hours? Shouldn’t we expect our RCMP to be more professional? Isn’t a person presumed to be innocent until they are tried and convicted? Are we descending into third world type governing that a person can be treated this way without much proof of any wrongdoing?
Jennie Fraser
Comox