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Details of a 2015 cabinet meeting the RCMP suspect Vice Admiral Mark Norman leaked to a company were already known by a number of well-connected individuals in Ottawa, says a retired defence industry lobbyist.

Norman was suspended from his job as second-in-command of the Canadian military more than a year ago after the RCMP alleged he tipped off Davie shipyards that the Liberal government was going to derail a project that involved the Quebec firm converting a commercial ship into a supply vessel.

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But Norbert Cyr, a retired military officer who had been a lobbyist for a defence firm as well as working for the defence industry’s top association, says he and a number of others with no connections to Norman or Davie knew the details of the cabinet meeting shortly after it happened.

“Within hours of the cabinet meeting we all knew about it,” said Cyr, who is no longer involved in the defence industry. “Ottawa is a village and something like that gets around so fast. There are note-takers, there are officials, there are people who work on the agenda.”