Public Accounts Committee on March 28th, 2007

[A/Commr David Gork]

No, I can't give you information on that. I wasn't personally involved. I was advised of it after the fact.

When I had a request to look at setting up a criminal investigation, I immediately met with Deputy Commissioner Loeppky, and we had a meeting. At the meeting, it was decided we should not run this investigation. We needed to have the OPS in to run the investigation, not the RCMP.

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

Okay. If that's the case, why was it months until the Ottawa Police Service was called?

Mr. Lewis, I'm then going to get to your comment.

[A/Commr David Gork]

My understanding is that it wasn't months. From the time I was involved with it, when I was first asked, I met with Deputy Commissioner Loeppky within a day or two days.

At that point, he met with the chief of the Ottawa Police Service to ask for their resources for whatever time it took them to start putting the resources in place, which was about a couple of weeks, to the time it took us to get resources in. It started immediately from the time we received the request.

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

Mr. Lewis.

[Ron Lewis]

Yes, Mr. Sweet, I have direct knowledge of it. I was involved in both criminal investigations, and I made both formal complaints.

On May 28, 2003, I went to the commissioner personally in his office. I gave him the information about the pension fund misappropriations, plus other issues that may have been internal issues, such as harassment, abuse of authority, and so on.

He instructed me at that time to go to the commanding officer of A Division to start an investigation, and I have the documents, which will be tabled. At that time, it was Assistant Commissioner Ghyslaine Clément, because she was responsible for criminal operations in the Ottawa area.

I did it through a formal written complaint, because I'd learned before that when I do things verbally they get twisted. I made a written formal complaint, which is in my documents, on June 5, 2003.

He told me at the time that he would contact me within a week on the other issues. On June 25, which was now three days short of a month, he had not called me. I sent him a message asking why he didn't get back to me.

He called me on June 26, 2003, and he said he would have Assistant Commissioner Spice review the other allegations. I said that was fine and he'd do a good job. He then said he'd stopped the investigation. I was shocked, because he was the commissioner of the RCMP. I'd never seen the commissioner of the RCMP stop a criminal investigation. I've been in the force 35 years, and I've never seen it happen before.

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

Mr. Lewis, one moment.

Mr. Macaulay, is that correct? Is it absolutely unheard of for someone to begin an investigation and then end it?

[C/Supt Fraser Macaulay]

At that level, I have never heard that a commissioner stopped one.

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

Okay. Thank you.

Go on, Mr. Lewis.

[Ron Lewis]

So I said, “What are you doing that for?” And he said, “Well, I'm going to do an internal audit.” Well, knowing the internal audit process, I said that as soon as they find wrongdoing--and we knew they had it, because Chief Superintendent Macaulay and Denise Revine had provided documentation, plenty of documentation--they're going to have to stop and continue with the proper investigation, which would be internal or criminal. And he said, yes, that's what would happen.

So it went on. It went on all summer. In October, at the end of October, the audit report came out. There was serious wrongdoing. That's on the record as well.

Now I have an added problem, because now I find out that the assistant commissioner I went to, who's the only person on the force I can go to to start a criminal investigation, is now implicated. We found out during the summer that she is now under investigation, or would have been.

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

And this is...?

[Ron Lewis]

This is Assistant Commissioner Gessie Clément.

So now I have no avenue. I have to find another avenue to get this investigation going again. My contact, coincidentally, happened to be Assistant Commissioner Barb George, while she was the chief superintendent at the time, and we had been dealing with other matters. I said, “Okay, I have a problem. We have to get this thing going. What's going to happen?” “The audit's not going to happen.”

I went to another very senior officer. He said, “Nothing's going to happen.” I went to the ethics advisor and integrity officer. He said, “Nothing's going to happen.”

So here I am, I'm thinking, is this the RCMP that I know? It's not. I can't get anybody who's in authority to start it up, because they can't do it.

So I sent a message through Barb George to the commissioner saying that if there is no discipline in this action after the result of this audit, the people I'm representing are going public.

Within days, Dominic Crupi, the OIC in NCPC, which is the National Compensation Policy Centre, and the chief human resources officer, Jim Ewanovich, were relieved of their duties. But they weren't fired. They weren't suspended. They were sent home on full pay, which is contrary to all policy in government.

Well, I waited another three weeks. What about the investigation? I still have no route to get an investigation going because the assistant commissioner is involved as well.

So what happened then is that I went back to Barb George. I said, “Okay, you can tell the commissioner that if there's no investigation, it will go public.” As a result, she said, “Okay, put it in writing, and we'll work it through somehow.”

Denise Revine put a heck of a report together. She worked right through Christmas. We presented it in writing, with my covering memo and with the allegations and the action required, on January 5, 2004. Nothing happened.

All of a sudden, that report was leaked. Somehow it was leaked internally. I was a little concerned, because I was figuring, what's the purpose of this leak? I don't know, because it was in only a very few hands.

I went, then, to the Auditor General, as I mentioned, the Minister of Treasury Board, and our minister at the time.

Finally, I think it was in March, I met with Assistant Commissioner Gork. Then on May 4, which was almost a year later, the criminal investigation was started. And that's how the two investigations.... One got stopped and the other one got started. But it took me a year and a lot of tough, tough decisions to get it done. And then we heard that it was never really fully completed. That's not my personal knowledge, but that's what I've been told.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Sweet. Thank you Staff Sergeant Lewis.

That concludes, colleagues, the first round.

We're going to go to the second round. It's going to be a little abbreviated, although we can go into the bells for a few minutes, I suppose.

I have one question to you, Assistant Commissioner Gork.

This situation is very complicated, and it's complex. It seems to me that we're dealing with a cover-up. A lot of times it's like Watergate; the cover-up is worse than the crime. It's getting such that I'm scared that the next person to walk through that door is going to be the ghost of Richard Nixon.

The bottom line is that we've had a horrendous situation, and there's been malfeasance at the highest level. There's been $3.1 million--and I'm just going to be very succinct--that had to be repaid by the RCMP. And you say it's the RCMP, but it's really the taxpayers of Canada. There's been a lot of fairly substantiated allegations of wrongdoing. Whether this wrongdoing was criminal, whether it was civil or administrative, the bottom line is that nobody in the RCMP has been sanctioned criminally or civilly. There's been no action to get the money back. There's been nobody administratively sanctioned. Nobody has lost their job, no one has been suspended, no one has gotten a written reprimand. It's almost as if this was a bad dream, that it didn't happen. It just didn't happen. That's how the RCMP is treating it.

This hearing today is televised. What do you say to the Canadian taxpayers?

[A/Commr David Gork]

It's certainly a difficult lead-in.

I guess what I would say to the Canadian taxpayers is this. In my belief, the Ottawa Police Service, using the RCMP resources, did an excellent investigation. Does that mean there were other extenuating investigations that may or may not have been started? You'd have to talk to the OPS about that and review the report.

At the end of day, what you have is 26,000, 24,000 men and women out there still doing their damnedest to make this a fine organization, and they're doing a hell of a job of it.

There have been some issues. Some of them have been identified here today, and I'm not trying to gloss them over. There are people who are no longer with the organization. Let's be quite honest about it; there are people who are gone now.

As far as I'm concerned, what you're dealing with is you have a new commissioner who's in place and issues are being dealt with. Nobody is 100% perfect in any organization, and we had an issue where at a particular moment in a particular time, and I have to agree with Ron on this, we took somebody in. Now, our organization is based on trust. We took someone in at the highest level, someone who shouldn't have been trusted, and that malfeasance filtered down. What you end up with is people following the type of example that's set. That's why it's so critical to have the people with the greatest integrity in positions of authority, and we didn't have it in that situation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Before we go to the second round, I just hope that none of my comments are construed to reflect on any of the 26,000 members, because I have the highest respect.

I know in this situation you took somebody in and there was malfeasance, but the point I'm making is the RCMP failed miserably to properly investigate and to administer whatever sanctions had to be there, whether they be criminally, civilly, administratively. There was absolutely zilch done.

As for those people who you talked about, who are gone from the force, they retired with honour, they retired with full pay, and they're watching the show and they're laughing at us now because there's nothing we can do about it. I'm sure if I asked you, you probably wouldn't know the answer, but I'm sure they got their bonus pay when all this was going on too. I'm sure they did.

Let me go to the second round because I don't want to monopolize—

[A/Commr David Gork]

Mr. Chair, I'm sorry for interrupting. You did say that nothing was done. A criminal investigation was done; the Crown said no charges. There were screw-ups with the time for the internal applications, and I certainly admit that there were.

As far as I am concerned, it deals with dates, and that's problematic, because any member of the RCMP, no matter when you commit something, should be responsible for it forever, not just for a one-year window of opportunity to deal with it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Okay. We're going to go to the second round, for three minutes, colleagues. Unfortunately, I apologize, I'm going to have to be hard on the time, because if I'm not, I'm going to penalize the people at the end of it.

Ms. Sgro, for three minutes.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Would you just quickly clarify what you meant when you said you took someone in and the malfeasance went downward? Would you quickly clarify that?

[A/Commr David Gork]

I don't care what organization it is. You take your cue from the person above you. If your supervisor is totally corrupt, after a while you're going to start becoming corrupt. You may not even see it as corruption; you may not even see it as a bad way; they're getting things done expeditiously.

We took in somebody at a very senior level who did not have the envelope of trust that they would normally grow within the RCMP. That person was corrupt, in my estimation, and it filtered down with the people who he had working under his authority.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

And who is that person you're referring to, Mr. Gork?

[A/Commr David Gork]

Mr. Jim Ewanovich.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

And who appointed him?

[A/Commr David Gork]

I assume it was Commissioner Zaccardelli.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

May I quickly say to all of you, the amount of respect that I have for the RCMP, as all of us, as parliamentarians and Canadians.... I have to applaud the courage of all of you to come forward and make a difference. This is an organization that we love and respect, and I'm extremely disappointed at what we've heard, but I also appreciate very much what you're doing.

I have a question for Mr. Walker.

When did the irregularities with the insurance administration first surface in OPS in the RCMP investigation? Do you recall at what point?

[S/Sgt Steve Walker]

Yes. We came across them one afternoon in July 2004, when we were reviewing documentation out of the RCMP audit report. A memo was pulled out and I read it, and it was at that point in time we became curious in regard to the insurance cited. It was in a letter of agreement between the chair of the insurance committee and the chair of the pension advisory committee that was done without knowledge of the committees themselves. It was an agreement between two of them, where they would take moneys out to help pay for the administration costs for the insurance of pensioners.

So at that point in time we jumped on this to say, “There has to be something else here”, and that's when the insurance came into play.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

In your opening statement you mentioned borderline criminal activity.