Davie leaks: Crown dropped lawsuit against federal official

The Crown announced on Thursday that it was dropping the case against Matthew Matchett, a former civil servant with the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, more than three years after the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) accused him of abuse of trust.

This surprise turnaround came on the fourth day of the expected four -week trial.

The Crown reassessed its position and asked for a halt to the trial on the grounds that it did not believe there was a real possibility that you would convict the accused.said Judge Hugh McLean.

This announcement is reminiscent of the final moments of Mark Norman’s case, when Crown prosecutors decided they had no reasonable chance of convicting the former vice-admiral of the Royal Canadian Navy.

The two men were charged with unlawful disclosure of government information to unauthorized parties. In this case, the decision of Justin Trudeau’s new Liberal government, in November 2015, to review a contract agreed upon by the previous Conservative government at the Lévis shipyard.

The deal included Davie leasing a converted civilian container ship to the Navy for five years, with the option for another five years. The Liberals finally approved the contract and the MV Asterix was delivered by Davie in January 2018.

A secret note impossible to track

In the case of Vice-Admiral Norman, the Crown relied on new evidence presented by the defense to seek the permanence of the proceedings. But in the case of public servant Matchett, the Crown’s case collapsed once its first witness appeared this week.

Veteran lobbyist Brian Mersereau told jurors he received a package of documents after speaking with Mr. Matchett in November 2015 about the Liberals ’plan to review Davie’s contract.

But the president of the international public relations firm Hill+Knowlton Strategies repeatedly said he did not remember whether Mr Matchett had given him a secret memo to the Cabinet about the deal. This failure to establish a stable relationship between Mr. Matchett and the secret record proved fatal in the prosecution case.

As he left the courthouse on Thursday, it was an obvious resentment that Mr Matchett thanked his defense team and family and friends for their support over the years. I am very gratefulsaid Mr. Matchett, who was suspended in October 2018 by his last federal employer, the Department of Supply.

Beside him, his attorney, Michael Johnston, argued that the officer had acted without malice or mischievous intent in that case. His interest is to ensure that the information is available so that decision makers can fully appreciate the impact of this contract on jobs in Atlantic Canada.he said. So we are sure, because of this fact, that sooner or later the warship of the Crown will sink.

The collapse of the Crown’s case against the officer therefore comes only three years after Mr. Norman left the same Ottawa courthouse in May 2019 after the proceedings stayed.

The high -profile case has sparked political and media interest for years, beginning with Chief of Staff Jonathan Vance’s shocking decision to suspend the former Navy vice admiral from office. second in army command in January 2017. He was formally charged with breach of trust in March 2018, 14 months later.

At preliminary hearings at Mr. Norman’s trial, his lawyer, Marie Henein, as well as the official opposition Conservatives repeatedly accused Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his ministers of political meddling in this file. .

The work of RCMP

Investigators from RCMP previously stated in court documents that they believed two government officials, acting independently of each other, had leaked government secrets in November 2015.

Mr Matchett’s name eventually appeared in the court records of Vice Admiral Norman’s defense team in October 2018, where the officer moved from Opportunities Agency to Public Services and Procurement. Two days later, he was suspended without pay, and four months later, in February 2019, the RCMP he was accused of a number of breaches of trust.

The collapse of the Crown case against Mr. Norman, a trial worth more than $ 1.4 million, raised questions at the time about the quality of the investigation. RCMP. Federal police insisted that their work on the case was thorough, independent and highly professional. But the abandonment of the procedures follows a similar failure in the case of Senator Mike Duffy, who was accused of fraud, breach of trust and corruption.

The RCMP instead it featured the achievements of other sensitive and high -profile investigations – from the conviction of former Stephen Harper aide Bruce Carson for selling influence to the imprisonment of a Royal Canadian Mint employee for stealing $ 190,000 that gold.

Following the continuation of the proceedings, Mr. Norman said he wanted to return to his duties, but he and the government eventually reached a financial agreement, the details of which had not yet been made public, before the vice admiral could not retired last year.