Staff Sergeant Stew MacDonald, who was a legally trained member working in procurement at the time.
So that's what happened with the investigation. When I found all this out, I was taken aback. Although there were a lot of questions around procurement's actions and corporate's actions, it seemed to me that once they knew about this, the senior members of the RCMP would do something about it right away. That's why I told Mr. Roy, who then said, “Well, you've got to tell Mr. Gork.” I told this whole deal to Mr. Gork, whose response was, “Oh, my God.” I'm paraphrasing. He immediately set up a meeting with Ms. George. His response to me was that Barb has to know about this.
So on February 9, 2005, I met with Ms. George—Mr. Roy and Mr. Gork were with me—and I explained all this. I further explained something that I haven't covered here, but I'll briefly cover. The way the moneys were being taken from the plans by this time wasn't based on effort; it was based on which plans had the most money. It seemed that the highest percentage was being taken out of the disability insurance, which is 85% funded by Treasury Board. This was the richest plan, and one would have noticed the money draining from it the least. That seemed to be a red flag, as well, for me.
I explained all this to Ms. George on February 9. Again, as I explained, this was at Mr. Gork's urging. He thought this was a big deal.
On February 9, I received an e-mail, which I have already read into the record, that Mr. Gork felt I had done a very good job and that I explained it very well. But the next day I received an e-mail that was addressed to both me and Mr. Roy:
Gentlemen: After our discussions of the past two days and knowing that you are meeting with the audit personnel today, I would just like to underline the aspect that once you have determined if there are no criminal charges to come out of the insurance stream—then we turn our information as to the workings over to the audit personnel for their follow up. If there will be charges then we carry on as normal. I do not want us spending time on investigations that we know are not criminal in nature.
This is an example of Mr. Gork giving the direction to both Mr. Roy and me as to how the investigation should go.
I replied that as far as I was concerned, that was the stream that charges were going to come out of. Mr. Roy replied back to me that he and I need to sit down and that he needs more details about it.
Again, that's just to give you an idea. There was a drastic change in Mr. Gork's outlook. An internal audit into the insurance had started at that point as well. There was some indication that our investigation would be shut down and the internal audit would be allowed to go, much the same as what happened in 2003. I was adamant that this not happen again. With respect to my personal relationship with some of the auditors, I struck a deal that we would work together as to what should have happened in the first place.
On that note, there is something else I forgot to mention. The contracts that allowed the money to go from the pension into the insurance funds were signed in the middle of the internal audit. The first one, the one that was called after the investigation, was cancelled. So even though the NCPC were breathing down their necks, they were still able to work these deals.
In March 2005, I met with Deputy Commissioner Gauvin and a number of others from finance and HR. The meeting was all about the insurance. I've given evidence previously, but I'll just summarize by saying that my interpretation of that meeting was that the RCMP was going to take back responsibility for the administration.
Up to this point, the audit had also found that it was inappropriate for the moneys to be removed. So it wasn't just the investigation; the internal audit found the exact same thing: it was inappropriate for the moneys to be removed from the insurance plans for administration.
My understanding was that it was going to stop, and then they were going to look for authority to pay back the moneys that had already been removed. My understanding, from the evidence I've heard since, is that this was the intent. But the evidence is that even though that was the intent, they received a legal opinion that they couldn't do it. My understanding is that the legal opinion was received a month or so after the money had already been taken out, so the timeline was a little off.
I didn't find out about the money being removed from the insurance plans—that half million dollars—until June, when Mr. Roy actually called me into his office to point out—and I've given this evidence—that another $542,000-plus had been removed from the insurance plans. He asked me if I knew about it. I did not. It came as quite a shock.
I asked Mr. Roy to forward that e-mail to me so I would have it, which I do. I immediately called the chief financial officer at this meeting I've talked about. He was put in charge of putting together an insurance committee to figure all this out.
He and I met. I expressed my concerns. He stated that he remembered things a little differently than I did.