The RCMP have concluded a 14-month investigation into the possible leak of income trust tax details by charging a senior civil servant in the Finance Department with breach of trust.

Serge Nadeau, the general director of analysis, tax policy branch, was charged Thursday, the RCMP said in a statement.

Senior civil servant Serge Nadeau, seen here testifying before a committee about the 2006 Budget Implementation Act, has been charged with criminal breach of trust. (CBC)

The RCMP allege Nadeau, 50, "used confidential Government of Canada information for the purchase of securities which gave him a personal benefit."

'The investigation has indicated no involvement in this matter by me, my staff or any other political person.' —Liberal MP Ralph Goodale

If found guilty, Nadeau could face a prison term of up to five years.

The roots of this story began during the last days of the Paul Martin Liberal government more than a year ago.

Around 6 p.m. ET on Nov. 23, 2005, then-finance minister Ralph Goodale announced that the Liberal government would cut the tax on corporate dividends and would make no changes to the tax on income trusts.

But opposition politicians and many market watchers noticed that trading volumes and prices in many income trusts and dividend-paying stocks jumped in the last two hours on Nov. 23 — hours before Goodale made his announcement. 

They questioned whether the details had somehow been leaked.

A month later — just as the federal election campaign was getting underway — the RCMP announced it had begun an investigation.

Some analysts have said news of the investigation contributed to the defeat of Martin's Liberals at the hands of Stephen Harper's Conservatives on Jan. 23, 2006.

Now that Nadeau has been charged and the RCMP says its investigation was now at an end, it means no politician will face charges.

On Thursday, Goodale, now a Liberal MP and Opposition House leader, said he welcomed the conclusion of the RCMP investigation.

"The investigation has indicated no involvement in this matter by me, my staff or any other political person," he said in a statement.

Harper himself said he was glad to see charges have been laid. 

"I hope the police are successful in getting to the bottom of the whole matter," he said Thursday.

The prime minister's muted statement was a far cry from a year earlier, when the then-opposition leader Harper repeatedly linked the income trust story to the sponsorship scandal and the Gomery inquiry.

"On the income trusts and some of these stories, I mean, I think they speak for themselves," Harper said at the time. "If we re-elect the government, we'll continue to have scandals, corruption and police investigations."

NDP finance critic Judy Wasylycia-Leis, who pressed the RCMP into launching the probe, told the CBC's Don Newman Thursday that she accepted the investigation's findings.

Wasylycia-Leis, one of many opposition MPs who repeatedly called for Goodale to step down from his cabinet position while the investigation was underway, also denied she ever accused anyone in Goodale's office of leaking information.

"I was trying to act in the public interest," Wasylycia-Leis said. "I never made any political accusations."

She also called for Goodale to apologize to Canadians for not calling for the investigation himself.

But some Liberals say they want their own apology in the belief the RCMP sealed the fate of their party at the last federal poll.

"They played a major role in shaping the last election on something that turned out not to be true at all," Liberal MP Mark Holland said Thursday.