Public Accounts Committee on March 28th, 2007

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I have to tell you, Chair, from my experience in the years I was connected with the police service in Ontario, either this chief superintendent deserves to be medalled for courage or his career is effectively over. That is one hell of a statement to make here in front of a parliamentary committee: that a deputy commissioner, as alleged by a chief superintendent, made the comments we've just heard.

There's no doubt in my mind that we should start to be thinking about where we're going from here, because I think Mr. Williams is right when he indicates that this is far from over.

I had a couple of other questions that came about, but if I can, Chair, I want to defer my time to Mr. Wrzesnewskyj, who is much more familiar with the details and can probably utilize the last couple of minutes better than I.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Brian Fitzpatrick]

I will permit that.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and I'd also like to thank my colleague from the NDP.

What we've heard is that some people claimed, Staff Sergeant Mike Frizzell, that you were harassing individuals within the RCMP, because you were trying to put forward information that during the ongoing investigation, over half a million dollars—I believe about $600,000—was in fact once again improperly pulled out of the insurance funds.

I understand there may be an audio recording, which you referred to earlier, that makes clear what exactly it was that you said some people had said was harassing.

[S/Sgt Mike Frizzell]

Yes. I only found out about the harassing thing recently. If I'd known about it at the time, I would have demanded an investigation. That's a heck of a thing to have hanging over your head.

This is a recording of me calling someone who then later got Ms. George chasing down Mr. Gork to have me removed for harassment. Did you want me to play the...?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Brian Fitzpatrick]

If you could.

[Audio Presentation]

Rosalie Burton: Barb, it's Rosalie here, calling at 8:45 on Monday morning. As per our discussion on Friday, I'm sending you this voice mail, but Lisa has transcribed it, and I'll send it to you over in an email, which will probably make it easier. In the email I'll address some of what he said here, but this is for your information so it's saved on more than one system. Thanks.

Mike Frizzell: Hi Rosalie, it's Mike Frizzell. Thanks for your call. I guess I get to talk to your voicemail now. As far as the meeting goes, it wasn't me, actually, who wanted the meeting. There is a fair amount getting lost in the translation here. What I wanted to make sure everybody understood was that our report will show that the insurance outsourcing and the money coming out of the plans instead of the RCMP, was done through deceit and fraud and if, once that goes public we're asked as investigators, “has this practice stopped” I was hoping to be able to say “yes, as soon as RCMP senior management became aware of it, it ended instantly and it was corrected.” As it stands now, all we'll be able to say is “no actually, the practice continues and in fact senior management took another 1/2 million dollars out of the insurance funds just the other day.” I don't think that reflects well on the organization and I don't think it'll cause...I think it will cause some pretty substantial issues, is what I think, and my understanding of the meeting we had a while back there with Mr. Gauvin seems to be substantially different than what other people there heard. So, I am confused, I'm distressed and basically put in a position where we have to say that what started through a criminal act is ongoing and seemingly condoned by senior management That is not what I wanted to have to say. If any of this made sense or if it doesn't you're welcome to give me a call back. I'm at 949-3769. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mr. Wrzesnewskyj is next. He has six and a half minutes left on this next round.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Staff Sergeant, we have a recording of this now. If we could also get a transcription of that and a copy of that, although it is recorded now....

You were trying to red flag an ongoing situation. While the criminal investigation was taking place, another over half million dollars being pulled out of the insurance funds. Someone has interpreted that as being harassment, and consequently we appear to have all the evidence.

We have e-mails tabled here today that Deputy Commissioner Barb George made calls to a number of assistant commissioners, after you had raised the red flag, to have you removed from the investigation. Mr. Gork was contacted in France, and I guess he gave the actual order.

Mr. Frizzell, during this investigation, top officials of the RCMP appointed by Mr. Zaccardelli, such as Mr. Ewanovich, were under investigation. Was the commissioner kept up to speed by briefings by anyone present today?

[S/Sgt Mike Frizzell]

I only know of one briefing that Mr. Gork gave the commissioner. I don't know of any others.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

I see. So we have a situation where we have a criminal investigation going on. Its net has now captured individuals appointed by Mr. Zaccardelli. This is the second investigation. The first one, when he caught wind of it, we heard from the new commissioner, he shut down two days into it. From what we hear, it took a year and amazing efforts in a very difficult environment--amazing efforts from a number of our officers--to finally get another investigation going.

Yet the very people affected by the investigation, which was supposed to be at arm's length and run by another police force...we had briefings being provided to the very people affected by the investigation. Is that a fair assumption?

[S/Sgt Mike Frizzell]

That's it in a nutshell.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you.

Mr. Gork, is there...?

[A/Commr David Gork]

I'm sorry, I have to address that point.

The commissioner and the senior executive of the RCMP were briefed in June--after the investigation was over, after the report had been provided to the commissioner. This was long after the resources, the crown attorney and so on, had gone through the investigation and said there were no charges. We still ended up where we had a number of issues that were internal issues at that time that I was identifying that had to be investigated, and that was a briefing that was given to all of SEC at that particular time.

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

I have a point of order.

Mr. Gork referred to the month of June, but can you tell us what year that was?

[A/Commr David Gork]

It was 2005.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Mr. Chair, I have also brought some documents that I would like to table and pass on to you for translation surrounding the leaves of Mr. Ewanovitch and Mr. Crupi. They show that they benefited from fraudulent leave claims, and then records after the fact were accessed to in fact cover this up.

Mr. Gork, who appointed Mr. Ewanovitch?

[A/Commr David Gork]

I assume it was the commissioner. I don't know. I wasn't present.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

What sort of relationship did Deputy Commissioner Barb George have with Commissioner Zaccardelli?

[A/Commr David Gork]

You'd have to ask her that.

Again, I worked at TPOF, which is a long way from the headquarters building.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Perhaps Staff Sergeant Frizzell could add to that.

[S/Sgt Mike Frizzell]

I just wanted to address the last question.

I have an e-mail here dated October 8, 2004:

For your info, the Assistant Commissioner has to meet the Commissioner on October 20 for an update on the investigation.

There is another e-mail to Mr. Gork from his secretary:

Sir, I have confirmed your attendance. Inspector Paul Roy has been notified and will be preparing briefing material [for you] prior to the meeting.

This was while the investigation was well under way.

[A/Commr David Gork]

That was to ensure we had the funding coming out of the proper budgets. I went to the commissioner and asked him if I could take the funding for this investigation out of my TPOF budget, because I had no other money—

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Sir, are there transcriptions of your meetings with the commissioner?

[A/Commr David Gork]

They were maybe three minutes long; there are no transcripts. There was no briefing as to this is who they're investigating. Frankly, I didn't know who they were investigating. It was to get the funding to support the investigators.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Would you agree that it would have been wise not to have been communicating in any way whatsoever in a criminal investigation that was potentially leading right into the commissioner's office, that it would have been wise not to have been meeting with the commissioner and discussing any issues whatsoever surrounding the investigation?