Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
When I was dismissed in early March, I had been employed by Rights and Democracy for nearly 20 years. I held the position of director of administration and resources and, in that capacity, occupied the position of secretary to the board. Until January of this year, I faithfully worked for all the presidents, regardless of whether they were officially appointed or were acting in that position. I have known all the board members since the centre was opened. They were often of different political allegiances, but, until recently, they all put their expertise in the service of the institution's mandate, without regard to their personal political concerns.
I prepared and cooperated in each of the annual audits conducted by the Office of the Auditor General of Canada, who, in 19 years, issued only one letter of recommendation to management, which is extremely rare, a number of years ago. I also cooperated in four five-year reviews, all of which found that the institution was doing an excellent job given the resources allocated to it.
In 2007, allegations of mismanagement were made to the department by an individual whose identity was not revealed. The minister decided at the time to send in a team of inspectors, who released a report recommending certain administrative improvements, but also stating that no evidence of fraud or misappropriation had been found. I worked together with the rest of management to introduce additional controls and to respond to all the recommendations made. All those measures have been in effect since the winter of 2008 and were reinforced by Rémy Beauregard when he took up his position.
In the past year, I have witnessed the change in atmosphere on the board of directors. A cloud of suspicion has insinuated itself into relations between certain board members, on the one hand, and between the president Rémy Beauregard and staff, on the other. Over the years, we have always worked to provide as much relevant information as possible to the board so that it could make informed decisions. When additional issues were raised, we tried to respond to them promptly and accurately. Considerable amounts have been spent during the current year to translate briefing documents.
Currently, and partly as a result of that, it is anticipated that the budget allocated for the operation of the board of directors will be exceeded by 140%. Suddenly, this confident openness no longer seemed to be enough. Questions were increasingly characterized by innuendo and insinuation. People insisted on speaking to employees directly, in the absence of their supervisor. Attempts were made to determine exactly how much certain executives were being paid. In the case of, among others, the European office, the opening of which had been approved by the board, or more special funding passed by the board, which was under the president's authority, the answers we gave were automatically considered incomplete or, even false.
Now all kinds of allegations concerning the legitimacy of certain payments are being reported in the newspapers. I can assure you, and I repeat, that all the financial transactions were made in accordance with established standards, in an entirely legal manner, and in accordance with an open and transparent process. It was mainly the matter of Mr. Beauregard's performance evaluation that set matters off. The committee responsible for the performance evaluation, consisting of Mr. Tepper and Mr. Gauthier, met with the president in March 2009 to discuss his performance. According to the latter, no criticism whatever was made of him during that meeting. The board subsequently met in camera to discuss the president's performance. The chair of the board did not want me to summarize the conclusions of that meeting for the purposes of the minutes, but, according to some board members who have since resigned, the board said it was entirely satisfied with the job done by Mr. Beauregard since his appointment in July 2008.
When we learned that a largely negative evaluation had been sent to Privy Council without any notice to the person concerned, we were all surprised and shocked. I was astounded to read the covering letter of the new board chair, who had been in the position for less than a month at the end of the evaluation period, and of the memo from Mr. Gauthier, in which he said he was surprised that no other staff member was Jewish.
I will leave it to Suzanne Trépanier to tell you about the impact this entire situation had on her husband's morale.
The term of Guido Riveros Franck, an eminent specialist in multi-party democracy in Bolivia, was not renewed, without any reason being given. As a result of that situation, the recipient of the Order of Canada and advocate of human rights in Afghanistan, Dr. Sima Samar, resigned. In my view, these are significant and needless losses.
I believe it is my duty to alert the committee to the exceptional nature of the controversy that certain members of the board have consciously orchestrated and that is destroying this institution, which is known around the world for the work it does. I sincerely hope this committee will shed light on the crisis at Rights and Democracy and issue recommendations that can resolve the impasse in which the institution currently finds itself. Thank you.