Public Accounts Committee on Feb. 14th, 2007

[Sheila Fraser]

The agency may be aware of some, but I'm not aware of any.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Wrzesnewskyj.

Thank you, Mrs. Fraser.

Mr. Williams, up to five minutes.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think Mr. Sweet is actually going to lead off.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to pick up where Mr. Christopherson left off. I certainly do echo his comments that hard-working Canadians are paying their fair share of taxes and we do not want to have anybody trying to seek any illegal, inordinate tax haven.

In your answers to Mr. Wrzesnewskyj you talked about the difficulty in finding high-calibre people for this kind of work. Would you suggest, then, that there needs to be a revisiting of the remuneration policy, to try to capture these people so they can serve the Crown?

[Sheila Fraser]

I don't know if the agency has looked at that possibility.

We are suggesting the agency does have people with the required expertise--perhaps not in the greater Toronto area--and that they should be using those people on some of the more complex, high-risk files. It's really assessing the risk and then using the people with the most expertise on the highest-risk files.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Okay.

I have one more question and then I'll go to Mr. Williams.

I notice in the recommendations you made that there was a response by the department. Before we get the department in here, it says, “The Agency agrees that access to additional information would further enhance its ability to identify—”.

We want to take a look at this. Is this the kind of response you would expect, as far as having some capability of holding them to account in the future?

[Sheila Fraser]

Well, we would certainly prefer to see specific commitments with timelines. At times departments will give more general answers in response to the chapter and then produce an action plan.

The committee has actually been very helpful in asking departments to produce those action plans with specific timelines. Then we can follow up as well and see if the commitments have been met.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

So that would be a question we need to pursue.

[Sheila Fraser]

Yes, that would be a good question that the committee may wish to consider.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Do you have a question, Mr. Williams?

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Yes, I do, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Madam Fraser, I'm still on these social insurance numbers. The last time we investigated this, it seems to me you could actually download a birth certificate off the Internet, fill it in, and get a social insurance number. I take it that's not going on anymore.

Still, given the report of the public accounts committee, I can't imagine why they haven't done anything about building a rapport with the departments of vital statistics to ensure they capture the people who are deceased.

Also, since it's Canada Revenue Agency that's writing all these cheques for old age security and the child tax credit and everything else, when people file a final tax return with the date of death of the deceased, why the Privacy Act would prevent them from saying.... It's the same department issuing the cheques and receiving tax returns. Why can't they say that the database can't collect it or they can't send a cheque to that social insurance number anymore? Is this beyond them? What's the problem that they can't add two and two and get four?

[Sheila Fraser]

Mr. Chair, I really think that's a question that has to be directed to the department. I suspect it may be around privacy issues, but I think it would be best to ask them.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

I can't understand this whole concept here.

You take the coast guard, Mr. Chairman. There are multi-million-dollar vessels they can't fix properly because they don't have a $50 manual on board to follow the instructions on how to repair it. They cause millions of dollars in damage rather than fixing the ship.

It seems there's a lackadaisical attitude of it being taxpayers' property and money and they're just going through the motions. Not much is getting done. I don't want to castigate all public servants, because I do know many of them provide yeoman service to the country. But it does seem that either at the management level or the lower management level, or with somebody coming up with a new logic model that defies any logic whatsoever, that these things just seem to fall through the cracks. They're so obvious—just so obvious—Mr. Chairman, that anybody can see there is a problem. And even when we point that out--years ago at the public accounts committee--nothing gets done. We have to change that.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Williams.

That, colleagues, concludes the questions.

I want to echo the comments of other members. I want to thank you, Mrs. Fraser, for your report. I want to thank you and your staff for the excellent work you do. Do you have any closing remarks?

[Sheila Fraser]

I would just like to thank the committee again for their interest in the report. We look forward to hearings, I would suspect, on some of the chapters in the coming weeks.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much.

Colleagues, we're now going to deal with Mr. Wrzesnewskyj's motion.

The witnesses can be excluded, if they so wish.

We have approximately 15 minutes left. Mr. Wrzesnewskyj has very kindly put the rationale for his motion into writing, and I want to commend him for that. I don't know how he could have explained it in the brief time we have.

I'd like to give the mover perhaps up to four minutes to explain the rationale. If there are any intervenors, I'll give them up to two minutes to respond, and then I'd like to put the question at 5:28 p.m., or when the bells ring, whichever comes first.

Mr. Wrzesnewskyj, you have up to four minutes.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair, for the generosity in time.

In order to ensure that the public accounts committee is fully able to get to the bottom of the serious criminal issues surrounding the findings of the Auditor General in chapter 9 of the report of November 2006, “Pension and Insurance Administration—Royal Canadian Mounted Police”, I move that the following people appear as witnesses before us next Monday.

The witnesses mentioned in my motion are as follows. The first is Staff Sergeant Ron Lewis. Staff Sergeant Ron Lewis will relate his allegations of a cover-up of the criminal internal investigations. These include delays and obstruction by Commissioner Zaccardelli.

Denise Revine, a public service employee, will testify about how she discovered evidence of wrongdoing by senior executives within the human resource directorate in relation to the RCMP pension fund. The most incredible part of her testimony will be her account of the actions taken by the RCMP to remove her, through constructive dismissal, from her position as an example to others who might be thinking of coming forward and whistle-blowing in the RCMP.

Chief Superintendent Fraser Macaulay was the director general of organizational and renewal effectiveness when allegations were brought forward in 2003. The formerly mentioned Denise Revine reported directly to him. The chief superintendent's superiors initiated a bogus internal investigation against the chief superintendent after he requested an investigation concerning one of the major subjects of this investigation.

Staff Sergeant Steve Walker, who is one of the lead investigators of the criminal investigation of the RCMP pension fund, will inform the hearing on how the investigation escalated due to the numerous violations uncovered, to the point that the RCMP had to take over the investigation. He will highlight the extent of violations, the amount of funds misappropriated, and related matters.

Staff Sergeant Mike Frizzell was seconded to the investigation and became the lead investigator for the RCMP on the insurance plan investigation. He'll outline the extent of the insurance plan investigation, including types of violations and amount of funds involved, and he'll also relate the roadblocks he encountered, his sudden removal from the investigation, and the shutting down of the investigation within days of his removal.

Finally, there is Assistant Commissioner for the RCMP David Gork. About halfway through the criminal investigation, during its most crucial stage, Assistant Commissioner Gork was transferred from this investigation and seconded to Interpol in Lyons, France. This was a significant development. Investigators will indicate that the investigation took a downturn in intensity after the announcement of the Gork transfer. He'll be able to shed some light on who made decisions regarding how the criminal investigation was set up, funded, and controlled, and why a parallel RCMP investigation was not conducted simultaneously, why it took fifteen months before that in fact took place, and at that point, how, because of the delay, the limitation of action expired and no member of the RCMP could be charged.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Wrzesnewskyj.

Mr. Williams, you have a two-minute intervention.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman,

I'm coming at this because I think the motion is out of order and ask you to consider the point.

In his motion Mr. Wrzesnewskyj asks the public accounts committee to get to the bottom of serious criminal issues. Mr. Chairman, as far as I'm aware, no charges have been laid. There may be some allegations of criminal activity here, but if no charges have been laid, why are we dealing with serious criminal charges?

In Mr. Wrzesnewskyj's opening remarks, he talked about bogus internal investigations, funds misappropriated, types of violations, criminal investigations, and so on, with absolutely no proof or substantiation of any kind.

Mr. Chairman, as I've said many times, the public accounts committee is an institution of accountability. We're not an institution of management or investigation. We are not here to take over where the RCMP, the City of Ottawa police, or anybody else failed. Our job is to hold the government accountable before Parliament.

Now there may be reasons why no criminal charges were laid. We may want to find out why no criminal charges were laid, but I'm not interested in any way, shape, or form in approving a motion that talks about serious criminal issues and in bringing people forward to talk about bogus internal investigations and funds misappropriated when no charges have been laid and no charges may ever be laid.

Now, if Mr. Wrzesnewskyj wants to go down this road, I say he goes down this road by himself. It seems as though he's talked to everybody involved and has the whole story, so why are we being involved? It's not our job, Mr. Chairman.

Therefore, I would ask that you rule the motion out of order. If there's a failure to do that, we should defeat the motion as it's currently presented.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Williams.

First, no, I'm not prepared to rule the motion out of order—

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Why?

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

—because it's a matter of debate.

But perhaps to clarify the record, I might invite Mr. Wrzesnewskyj to remove the word “criminal” from his motion.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

In fact, I was going to make that suggestion, in the hope that it would assuage Mr. Williams' concerns.