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Top bureaucrat wrote 60-page memo to Trudeau about Mark Norman case, lawyer says

OTTAWA — Vice-Admiral Mark Norman’s lawyer says she wants to see a secret 60-page memo the federal government’s top bureaucrat penned to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about her client’s case.
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File photo by THE CANADIAN PRESS Vice-Admiral Mark Norman arrives to the Ottawa Courthouse in Ottawa.

OTTAWA — Vice-Admiral Mark Norman’s lawyer says she wants to see a secret 60-page memo the federal government’s top bureaucrat penned to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about her client’s case.

Lawyer Marie Henein revealed the existence of Privy Council clerk Michael Wernick’s memo to Trudeau on Thursday as Norman’s breach-of-trust case returned for another day of pre-trial hearings.

The revelation is the latest twist in Henein’s months-long fight for thousands of government documents she says are essential to prove his innocence.

Subpoenas were issued last month for emails, BlackBerry messages and other internal communications from Trudeau, Wernick and other top officials about Norman as Henein seeks records to prove political interference in the case.

Henein told the court that she recently received a copy of Wernick’s memo to the prime minister dated Oct. 24, 2018 as part of a larger trove of documents but she said the contents were completely blacked out.

“We received in the material that’s come to us — in completely redacted form for solicitor-client privilege — a memo from Michael Wernick to the prime minister,” Henein told Justice Heather Perkins-McVey.

“Mr. Wernick is not a lawyer, I don’t believe,” Perkins-McVey replied, though she quickly added: “I’m not sure.”

It was at that point that Henein said she planned to present arguments on why the contents of that memo and others obtained from the government should be released.

Among the other memos were two sent to Wernick by the Privy Council Office’s top lawyer, Paul Shuttle.