Since a breach of trust charge against Vice-Admiral Mark Norman was dropped last week, the opposition parties in the House of Commons have been demanding an inquiry into potential Liberal interference in the judicial travails of the military’s former second in command.

There is no doubt the electoral self-interest of the Conservatives and the New Democrats would be best-served by keeping the government’s feet to the fire on this affair.

In that, they may yet get help from Norman himself. On the day he was vindicated, the vice-admiral promised to give his version of the events that turned his career upside down two years ago.

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But perhaps a more relevant and larger question is whether Canada’s police forces are out of their depth when it comes to investigating politically related matters. There is mounting evidence that they are at a loss to figure out where to draw the line between ethical breaches and criminal activities.

If one could turn back the clock, one suspects the ruling Liberals would not — in their salad days in power — have called on the RCMP to investigate a leak. When it comes to information, Parliament Hill operates very much like a sieve.

If I have learned anything over my time covering politics, it is that most obvious source of so-called confidential information is rarely the actual culprit or the only one.

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Opposition MPs force emergency meeting of defence committee on Mark Norman affair

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Opinion | Jaime Watt: Norman case another blow to Canada’s justice system

Crown drops breach-of-trust case against Vice-Admiral Mark Norman

Party leaders including prime ministers have even been known to dispatch staffers to sniff out ministerial or caucus indiscretions on occasions when the loose lips they were purporting to want found were their own.

When it comes to the business of politics, the concept of confidentiality is also not an airtight one.

In the case of the leak that the RCMP eventually singled Norman out for, dozens of others had knowledge of the information that was disseminated.

When dealing with an incoming government — which is liable to have second thoughts about contracts awarded on the way out by its predecessor — a lot of people are paid to keep their ears to the ground.

The Norman case came to a halt after his defence team provided the prosecution with new information. Some of the context-altering facts that came to light might have been hidden in plain sight of the RCMP all along.

The foundation of the case against Norman rested on 12 instances when he was alleged to have had backdoor interactions with the Davie shipyard for the purpose of helping it secure a contract to retrofit a supply ship for the navy. Most of those instances dated back to when Stephen Harper was in power, yet the RCMP did not interview a single Conservative elected official or political staffer. It was Norman’s defence team that ended up approaching them for answers.

This is the second time over a relatively short time span that a mountain of RCMP evidence in a high-profile political case has turned into a legal molehill.

If there were lessons to be learned from the dismissing of 31 corruption-related charges against Sen. Mike Duffy in 2016, they were apparently lost on the way to putting Norman on trial for breach of trust.

A political scandal does not necessarily involve illegal actions. To wit, the recent SNC-Lavalin affair.

In the Senate spending matter, it was Harper’s PMO’s efforts to suppress the issue that elevated the controversy to the rank of major scandal; none of the protagonists behind those moves was ever prosecuted.

When it comes to securing a relatively timely outcome to legal travails pertaining to the greyer areas of daily politics, not everyone is quite as fortunate as Duffy and Norman.

Jean Charest left politics after he led his Liberal party to defeat almost seven years ago and has been under investigation by Quebec’s UPAC — the province’s anti-corruption unit — for about as long.

The clock on the right to a timely trial only starts once charges are laid. On that basis, the file on Charest could remain open until the cows come home.

If only for optics purposes, it might be more comfortable for UPAC to keep it on its active list than to take the heat that would attend dropping the investigation for lack of conclusive results.

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The UPAC work did lead to the arrest of Charest’s former deputy premier, Nathalie Normandeau. Her trial on corruption charges is still pending.

Some legal insiders believe the case against her is unlikely to hold up in court, and that her acquittal — should she win the day — could pave the way for the Charest investigation to be closed.

On the heels of Duffy’s acquittal, the RCMP dropped an investigation into Sen. Pamela Wallin’s spending without laying any charges.

So yes, there are lots of questions pertaining to the Norman case and to other recent politically charged police investigations. They just are not necessarily the ones the opposition parties are most anxious to pursue.