Evidence of meeting #66 for Public Accounts in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was rcmp.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:45 p.m.
Senior Policy Analyst, Disability Program & Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
No, I'm just saying I did that part of the business case. That's the only part I did.
4:45 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Help me. I'm not going after you. Help me here. Help me understand.
What took place at that meeting? We've heard from Staff Sergeant Frizzell that the meeting was basically meant to be a fig leaf, a front, just to make it look like there was a process. Was that a real evaluation that you participated in? Or, as Mr. Casey has testified, were you part of making sure the fix was in?
I guess I am going after you.
What happened at the meeting? Just tell us what happened at the meeting, sir.
4:45 p.m.
Senior Policy Analyst, Disability Program & Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
It's a long time ago. I'll try to give you what my recollection is.
4:45 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Let me make this comment. When you sat down, was this a real meeting? Were you really evaluating things?
4:45 p.m.
Senior Policy Analyst, Disability Program & Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Again, I just want to preface that by saying that I was also responsible—I have to tell you this—for the pension outsourcing as well, so there were a lot of things happening at the same time. That's probably why I didn't recognize the evaluation portion of the business case. And I believe that even Liz Ballantyne, who is not here today, probably forgot that she was involved too. It's true, the three of us were involved in that portion of the business case. Was there a fix in? No, it was just evaluating those three items, three companies.
4:45 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Staff Sargeant, you've heard this testimony. Give me your thoughts on what you just heard.
4:45 p.m.
S/Sgt Mike Frizzell
I interviewed Mr. Roy and Ms. Ballantyne, and, as Mr. Roy says, perhaps everyone forgot when I was interviewing them, but I can only go by what I was told at the time.
4:45 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
You were told very clearly by them.... Do you recall any of the actual words that they said?
4:45 p.m.
S/Sgt Mike Frizzell
The gist of it was that there was no formal evaluation.
4:45 p.m.
Senior Policy Analyst, Disability Program & Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
May I speak?
First of all, I didn't see the document when I was being interviewed, so I don't know what we were exactly talking about. I may have confused it with a bidder's evaluation, and that never took place. It was the evaluation of the options. So there may have been a misunderstanding.
4:50 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Maybe the misunderstanding is on my part, but the allegation is that the fix was in and the meeting was an afterthought as an attempt to provide a paper process that really wasn't legitimate.
4:50 p.m.
Senior Policy Analyst, Disability Program & Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Not that I'm aware of.
4:50 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
You are with Mr. Casey in saying that it was a real meeting and you're disagreeing with Staff Sargeant Frizzell that--
4:50 p.m.
Senior Policy Analyst, Disability Program & Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
No, what I'm saying is that we did participate in an evaluation of options, and I don't agree that the fix was in at that point, or at any point.
4:50 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Thank you.
I want to come back to the issue. Staff Sargeant and Chief Superintendent Macaulay, when I asked questions about why didn't you dig further into why people were prepared to go to such great lengths to make sure Morneau Sobeco won when it was starting to cause all of these problems, I was trying to get to the source of that. And when I asked you, you responded to me.... I ask you again: why didn't you spend more time finding out what the motivation was that Morneau Sobeco had to be the winner no matter what, given that it was starting to cause problems and there were legal questions, etc.? Why didn't you explore that more, Staff Sargeant?
4:50 p.m.
S/Sgt Mike Frizzell
There are the two issues of Morneau with the pension, and that's because I was told not to. But on the issue with the insurance I thought it was pretty clear that Mr. Crupi wanted this done at the same time as the pension, so it had to be done lickety-split. That was the reason why they pushed--
4:50 p.m.
S/Sgt Mike Frizzell
Mr. Crupi would better be able to answer that, but this would have been quite a coup for him and anyone else with him to have both the insurance and the pension successfully outsourced in one fell swoop.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
4:50 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
You were specifically told not to. By whom, and what were the reasons given?
4:50 p.m.
S/Sgt Mike Frizzell
It was by Mr. Gork, and the reasons given were that we were expanding the scope of the investigation. My understanding was we were to look into how the pension money was spent. A significant portion of that pension money was spent on the outsourcing to the outsourcer. He felt that our scope was narrower than that.
4:50 p.m.
NDP
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Brian Fitzpatrick
That's it, Mr. Christopherson. We have to move on.
I have just a point of clarification here.
Mr. Roy, you said that you received some tickets from the one group for hockey. Was that for Ottawa Senators games, or what was that?
4:50 p.m.
Senior Policy Analyst, Disability Program & Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Yes, sir.