Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee, for inviting me to discuss the investigation of the RCMP pension and outsourcing.
As an RCMP lead investigator with the Ottawa Police Service-RCMP investigation, I'd like to take this opportunity to provide committee members with a quick overview.
In April 2004 I was seconded from the Winnipeg RCMP major crime service to assist the Ottawa Police Service in setting up a joint investigation into allegations of wrongdoing within the RCMP pension administration and insurance outsourcing. This investigation would encompass allegations of fraud relating to Treasury Board fenced funding, violations of the Financial Administration Act, breaches of the Treasury Board regulations and directives relating to contracting and procurement, violations of the North American Free Trade Agreement, and a host of allegations relating to hiring irregularities associated with nepotism and favouritism. Investigative observations showed a wanton disregard for accepted accounting practices and a management override of financial controls and accountability, which led to wasteful spending and borderline criminal behaviour. These behaviours went well beyond being administrative in nature.
For the past 133 years, the RCMP has striven to secure and maintain public trust and confidence, based upon strict adherence to a set of entrenched core values that we attempt to identify in every employee who enters our service. These core values are honesty, integrity, respect, compassion, professionalism, and accountability. It is through strict adherence to these values that we, the national police service, assure the public that we are beyond reproach and can be held to the highest moral and ethical standards that far exceed the expectations of most private and public institutions.
The mechanisms for ensuring the adherence to core values are accountability and supervision. The most dangerous consequence of poor accountability and supervision is corruption. The lack of proper accountability and supervision has been stated as an important contributing factor to corrupt behaviour. Proper supervision and accountability allows managers to identify the warning signs by ensuring that rules are adhered to, so they can remove the opportunities for corrupt behaviour. Corruption has a tremendous impact on public trust, faith, and internal morale.
As a lead investigator with this investigation and as a member of the RCMP with over 26 years of service, I have never heard of or witnessed such wholesale violations of all our core values as I have seen and observed in the course of the pension investigation. The apparent lack of accountability and unethical conduct by some of our senior managers within the RCMP financial and human relations sector can only be translated to a failure of the basic principles of modern comptrollership and financial stewardship that were required by all levels of RCMP management. These failures were identified at so many levels--by the RCMP financial audit, the OPS-RCMP criminal investigation, independent financial forensic reviews, and the Auditor General' s report.
In retrospect, and because of my policing background, I can now look back and say that when I arrived in Ottawa in April 2004 with a two-month mandate to get this investigation completed, I believe we were intended to give this a quick once over and to minimize the allegations. After our initial review, and within six weeks, it became evident that this was a very complicated and involved investigation. It was also obvious that we had neither the mandate, the tools, nor the human resources to complete this investigation in an expeditious and professional manner.
It took four months to convince both the RCMP and the OPS that proper funding and resource allocation would be required to thoroughly investigate the allegations that had surfaced. We were five months into the investigation before a plan was approved, and it was at this time that pressure was already coming to bear from the RCMP sources to get the investigation completed. From the first planning meetings of the investigation, our team was given commitments for additional resources, but after eight months no substantial change had been effected, and l began to suspect the possibility of not being able to complete this investigation in an independent and thorough manner. As I had been brought to Ottawa to do a two-month investigation, my family was very reluctant to see me extend my tenure past this point into a ninth month, and I reluctantly asked to be returned to Winnipeg to be with my family and to continue my duties with major crime. At no time did l sever my involvement with the investigators. l had regular phone contact and helped with reports, interviews, and consultation from a distance.
At this point in time, I can now say, as a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, that I am disappointed and disillusioned that both the criminal and internal processes have failed to bring any degree of accountability. I am devastated that every core value and rule of ethical conduct that I held to be true and dear as a rank-and-file member of the RCMP has been decimated and defiled by employees at the highest levels of the RCMP.
This investigation and the outcomes are nothing short of sickening to any loyal and dedicated employee of the RCMP. My observations during this investigation and the evidence collected have led me to believe that actions or lack thereof should have resulted in the removal from management of a host of individual employees, and at the very least, quick internal sanction to ensure accountability. This should have been done to send a loud and clear message to all levels of management that corrupt conduct will be swiftly and severely dealt with in our national police service. The public expects this, and so do the employees and members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
To date we have seen only two management-level employees leave our organization as a result of this investigation. These employees did not leave as a result of official sanction.
Millions of dollars in pension fund and insurance moneys have been subject to misuse and misappropriation and spent in violation of rules surrounding fenced funding and Treasury Board directives. The activities surrounding these pension funds went well beyond being administrative in nature. Most trained police officers would view some of these activities as nothing short of criminal in nature. Just because you may not be able to prove the allegation beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law does not make the action any less criminal and purely administrative. This appears to have been the mindset of the RCMP management, who have since provided review and interpretation of audits and investigations.
The RCMP chief financial officer should be the RCMP leader in the area of modern comptrollership and financial ethics. He would be accountable and answerable as the CFO of the RCMP based on the rules of accountability he himself approved and instituted during his initial tenure as RCMP CFO from 1999 to 2003, which covers the period of the pension and insurance outsourcing.
It was also during this period that the RCMP was subject to investigation, review, and criticism by an Ontario Provincial Police investigation into contracting irregularities and breach of trust relating to renovations to the commissioner's office and other financial issues. During this period the RCMP was investigated and sanctioned for financial and accounting issues associated with the Gomery inquiry.
How many times is an organization allowed to make the same mistakes before someone is held accountable at the highest levels and positive change can be seen by our employees and the taxpayers?
Thank you.