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Just months after the alleged leak of cabinet confidences that led to the removal of Vice-Admiral Mark Norman as second-in-command of the Canadian Forces, police launched another investigation into a different leak of federal shipbuilding information — but gave up after discovering it had been distributed so widely throughout government and the defence industry that finding the culprit would be impossible.

In March 2016, the Privy Council Office complained to military police that the potential cost of a new fleet of warships had been leaked to a journalist by someone in the Canadian Forces or Department of National Defence.

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The complaint was prompted by a report by wire service The Canadian Press that the price tag for the navy’s Canadian Surface Combatant program, which will see it build a new fleet of warships, could be as high as $104 billion.

Military investigators eventually determined the cost estimate in the story came from a report prepared by a consulting firm the government hired to assess the project’s potential cost, according to Canadian Forces National Investigation Service files obtained by Postmedia under the Access to Information law.