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OTTAWA — The Senate’s defence committee will finally get an answer on Monday over whether Vice-Admiral Mark Norman will agree to testify over the circumstances around his controversial prosecution.
But it may be too late, as the Senate committee is facing a deadline crunch with the chamber set to rise for its summer break later this week. The Conservative deputy chair of the committee has said it is no longer possible to conduct the study as originally envisioned, in part because the government side won’t agree to extend meetings past this week.
In correspondence sent Sunday and obtained by the National Post, Norman’s lawyer Marie Henein raised concerns about the potential study, telling the committee’s clerk her view is that senators may not have the time and information they need to fully examine the matter. She said she’s concerned the committee’s brief study “will not be of assistance to the Canadian public.”
Henein also said she’d only received the committee’s actual invitation requests this weekend, because they had been sent to a general email inbox at her law firm rather than to her directly.
At this point, even if Norman agrees to testify, it’s unclear what form that testimony would take. Conservative Sen. Jean-Guy Dagenais has asked the committee to meet on Monday to discuss the matter. He said in a letter to the committee’s chair he intends to withdraw his motion for a study.
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