I kind of feel like cannon fodder here, especially after Ms. George complained to the committee about how she was treated, and then she sat here and made allegations against me that I've heard for the first time. I'm not sure how the chief human resources officer justifies saying I was such a bad person, and yet nobody ever sat down with me and explained to me all of these allegations. I would have liked the chance back then to deal with that.
But that aside, Ms. George contacted me on the Thursday before I was removed—her office did—asking to see me. I said yes, and then I started thinking about it and called back and asked why. To make a long story short, I was told it was about a phone call I had made. Obviously it's the phone call I made to Ms. Burton, but at the time I believed it was a phone call I had made to Great-West Life when I'd learned about half a million dollars being taken out of the insurance fund.
Now, Ms. George has been nice enough to say that I failed to understand the intricacies of that investigation. No one has ever pointed that out to me. In fact, I made a presentation directly to Ms. George in February of this year, where Ms. George would have had plenty of opportunity to set me straight or to realize I was pretty serious and have somebody else set me straight. Instead, out of that meeting, Mr. Gork sent me an e-mail telling me:
I want to thank both of you, especially Mike, not only for all the work you've done, but for your ability to put it together in a package that someone as untrained as myself can understand. You did a great job this a.m. with the CHRO, Mike. You bring credit, not only to the investigation, but to yourself. Good on you.
That was February 2005.
So I thought it had to do with this money, but I found out otherwise, and was told that Ms. George was gunning for me. You've heard about her trip to see Mr. LaFosse.
Anyway, that aside, come Monday morning, when I was supposed to go to see her, I hadn't heard back from her on why she wanted to see me. I felt that was important, because I felt she was involved in removing this money from the insurance plans. So I sent her an e-mail that morning:
I would like to meet with you to discuss further moneys that had been removed from the members' insurance plans, but if the topic is something else, then, as per my last e-mail, I would appreciate knowing what it is so that I might properly prepare.
That e-mail was sent at 10:22. I was supposed to see Ms. George in her office at 10:30. Within 40 to 45 minutes of that, Mr. Lang and Mr. Newman showed up at my door to give me the famous order you've all heard about. There was no mention of anything to do with Ottawa, other than the line that Ms. George mentioned. When I challenged it, Mr. Lang didn't know anything about it, but Mr. Newman was extremely preoccupied with the fact that I should have been at the CHRO's office and I wasn't, and how dare I not show up at the CHRO's office as demanded.
All I said to him was that there were an awful lot of ranks, as he could clearly see, between me and the chief human resources officer of the RCMP; that it was not appropriate for her to be calling me there, and certainly not appropriate for her to be calling me there without my knowing why. There was absolutely no question in my mind, due to the conversation with Mr. Newman, due to the e-mails, due to the fact I was supposed to be in her office at the time, that I was being removed from the investigation because of Ms. George and the money taken out of the insurance plans.
That's a long answer.