Public Accounts Committee on April 18th, 2007

[Paul Roy]

No, I do not.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Thank you.

According to one of these documents, when you were relieved of your duties, you were removed fairly quickly from your office and the data on your computer was destroyed.

Is that correct?

[S/Sgt Mike Frizzell]

I was not removed from the office. I was given the order that basically said, get out, but only after you've cleaned up. After thinking about it for a short time, I decided that I would just get out. I left my computer behind since it belongs to the RCMP, not to me. But yes, it was wiped, and I find that highly unusual.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Did you lose any data?

[S/Sgt Mike Frizzell]

I lost all the data.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Is this data stored somewhere?

[S/Sgt Mike Frizzell]

Some of it was on the jump drive, but it went missing from my desk in August 2005, so there are no more backups.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Roy, has the money that was taken from the pension fund been returned? Did your investigation shed light on who returned the money to the fund?

[Paul Roy]

We identified certain losses or certain sums that were directed to programs other than the pension fund. At one point, we were advised that certain sums of money had been returned to the pension fund.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Merci beaucoup.

Mr. Lake, you have three minutes.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Ms. George, this is baffling to me as I go through this. I go back to yesterday and Mr. Zaccardelli. It seems that every time anybody got close to anything, they were removed. Obviously this was one of the most important things going on in the RCMP at the time, at least in the long term.

So Macaulay comes forward, and not for any good reason, not because he was wrong or did anything illegal. It sounds as though he was removed for his own benefit. He was removed from any access to any of the information. Then shortly afterwards, Denise Ravine was gone, and she was removed from access to any kind of information. Later, Assistant Commissioner Gork was removed and sent to France.

As you can imagine, it doesn't look so good. We're sitting here faced with three members in uniform, at least one of whom isn't telling the truth, based on testimony we heard. This is hard. I'm sure it's very difficult for people watching this to believe what is going on in this great institution.

First, I want to go back to this privacy concern with Staff Sergeant Frizzell. Are you all right with your privacy now, if she tells us what those health reasons were that she couldn't reveal before, for privacy reasons?

[S/Sgt Mike Frizzell]

I believe what Ms. George said is that any health reasons that I may or may not have had occurred after I was given the order—not before.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Ms. George, what were the health reasons? You clearly said that there was a reason you couldn't tell the full story last time, but you definitely understood that it was for health reasons.

[D/Commr Barbara George]

I believe those were stress related at the time.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Okay. But now we find out that there were all sorts of issues here regarding members of the RCMP in tears and people running out of offices screaming.

You were the chief human resources officer at the time. Would someone running out of an office in tears be considered a human resources issue? Would that be normal? Is this not something that would be brought to your department's attention—that there's a monster on the loose and people are running away from him in tears?

[D/Commr Barbara George]

Nobody used the words “monster on the loose”, sir. When my DG, Rosalie Burton, came and said, “Barb, people are running out of the office in tears, upset, and their units are seeing them; they're chasing them out of the office”, that's when we spoke of potential harassment behaviour.

I did my due diligence. I called and asked that Sergeant Frizzell be spoken with and asked to temper his—

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

You were aware of people running out in tears?

[D/Commr Barbara George]

From my DG, yes.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

So this information that was sent to you on February 25 isn't new; you were actually aware of those things at the time.

[D/Commr Barbara George]

That's why I made the call to Assistant Commissioner LaFosse.

Whether this is the same information I don't know, since there were other instances in which, according to what Dave Gork wrote, interviews were lost because Sergeant Frizzell became overly emotional.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Okay, we have to move on now, Mike. I'm sorry.

It's Mr. Christopherson, for three minutes.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

And Chair, just to advise, at the end of the meeting I'd like the opportunity to place a motion that would have us return this panel of witnesses for a further meeting.

Ms. Burton, in your opening statement you said that one of the employees identified for surplus was Denise Revine. This would be as a result of the restructuring. Is that the reason that she no longer had a job: because you restructured, and she was just...the music stopped and there was no chair for her to sit down on?

[Rosalie Burton]

No, prior to my arrival there was a decision taken, and 12 individuals were identified to be declared surplus. Denise Revine was one of the 12, and the file indicated that this was on or before September 11, 2003.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you.

The deputy commissioner gave testimony at an earlier meeting that--for the third time--Sergeant Frizzell left for health reasons. The deputy testified that Mr. Crupi left for health reasons. And you should know that the deputy testified that Ms. Revine had health issues.

I'm having trouble with this. Was it because it was restructured, or were there health reasons? Which was it, in your opinion?

[Rosalie Burton]

I implemented the budget decisions that were made prior to my arrival. That was the only information I had at that time, as I recall.