IRVING'S BOY IN CYA MODE

   Scott Brison, the veteran Nova Scotia MP and former Treasury Board president who resigned from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet earlier this month, has brought his own lawyer to a hearing in Vice-Admiral Mark Norman’s criminal case in a bid to protect his privacy and his reputation.
   Although the Department of Justice has been coordinating a massive effort to collect subpoenaed documents, Brison declined to disclose his personal emails to the government. Instead, Brison’s lawyer informed the government in December that he preferred to disclose such documents to the court independently.
  He is also seeking to protect his reputation, the application says, particularly against the accusation that he is close to the Irving family that controls the shipbuilding firm. The defence has disclosed evidence that one witness told the RCMP that Brison was “Irving’s boy.”

  Christie Blatchford weighs in, on the troubling conduct of the Crown.