Evidence of meeting #46 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 senior.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Assistant Commissioner, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
I am sorry, sir. I had to get my funding to pay for this investigation. This investigation came out of my directorate budget.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
Sir, I'm having a hard time understanding how this could have been an Ottawa police investigation, an arm's-length Ottawa police investigation. Sir, you chose the investigating officers. There were in fact how many officers investigating this?
Assistant Commissioner, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
First off, I did not choose them. What I did—
Assistant Commissioner, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
I went out to the divisions....
Mr. Chair, he has asked me a question. I would like to respond to it. He said I chose the—
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
The question was how many officers were on this investigation.
Assistant Commissioner, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
It was a total of about 17 or 18 officers. I went out to the divisions and asked the divisions to provide resources to us. They sent us in the names and the people. We got who we could possibly get. We didn't go through and do any type of an evaluation as to who was coming in.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
When you decided to fire investigators--remove them from the investigation--whose decision was that?
Assistant Commissioner, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
That was Inspector Paul Roy's. He contacted me in Lyon, not Barb George. He sent me an e-mail. He said he had a problem. I called him. Inspector Paul Roy told me the problem he had at that time and asked for Mr. Frizzell to be removed. That is why we requested that we have Inspector Roy here.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
Sir, I have an e-mail that I tabled from one of your colleagues, another assistant commissioner. It clearly states that Deputy Commissioner Barb George had contacted him, another assistant commissioner, and yourself to have Mr. Frizzell removed.
Assistant Commissioner, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Again, as I said, I would request that you have Inspector Paul Roy here and ask him that question. It was Inspector Paul Roy who contacted me—
Liberal
Assistant Commissioner, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
No, she did not. I'm telling you who contacted me. It was Inspector Paul Roy who contacted me, not Barb George.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
So Barb George did not call you to have Mr. Frizzell removed?
Assistant Commissioner, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
No, she did not. Inspector Paul Roy contacted me to have him removed. I would request that you contact or have Inspector Paul Roy here and ask him that question.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
Mr. Wrzesnewskyj, your time is up. Do you want to continue?
Okay. We're going to move on.
I want to thank you, Mr. Wrzesnewskyj, and thank you, Assistant Commissioner Gork.
Mr. Sweet, for seven minutes.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Staff Sergeant Frizzell, on questioning Commissioner Busson, I challenged her on a statement in which she said no damage was done to the pension fund. Today you're saying that is in fact not the case.
Let me see if I can find her exact words for you.
You'll have to take the essence of it. Would you say it's not the case?
Staff Sergeant, Strategic and Operational Support, National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
What I was referring to today were the insurance funds.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
Okay. But you also said money was actually being moved and appropriated from the pension fund to the insurance fund. Didn't you say that?
Staff Sergeant, Strategic and Operational Support, National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Yes, the money most certainly was moved. The half million dollars I was speaking about was the money taken out of the insurance plans to pay back the pension.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
Okay. She actually said the money was never appropriated from the fund to the point where members of the RCMP would lose their benefits.
Staff Sergeant, Strategic and Operational Support, National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
It's semantics. It's a guaranteed benefit plan.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
Yes. In fact, it would be the taxpayers who would have to top up any funds that were misappropriated, wouldn't it?
Staff Sergeant, Strategic and Operational Support, National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Yes.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
Assistant Commissioner Gork, a criminal investigation began and then was very quickly shut down.
The last time we were here, we had the chief of the Ottawa police. I asked him, if he was going to investigate his own department, wouldn't he go through a lot of hand-wringing about the decision to do so?
Can you tell me why an investigation was called and then was shut down immediately within days?