Public Accounts Committee on April 23rd, 2007

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Ms. McLellan.

Mr. Wrzesnewskyj, your point is interesting, but I'm not sure who on this panel could answer that question. But I'll let you continue.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Well, I haven't asked the question as yet, and I hope Mr. Poilievre's point of order is removed from my time. Thank you.

Actually, I'd like to quote Mr. Poilievre again. He referenced the two former ministers who are appearing before us. He said, “They were informed of what was going on and did absolutely nothing”. We now know that's not correct. But I think it would in fact apply to the parliamentary secretary and the current minister. On March 29, a number of members here, including Mr. Williams, were quoted in Macleans as asking for a full public inquiry. Mr. Christopherson had a motion, which passed by a majority on committee, requesting a full public inquiry.

Mr. Alcock, do you have any thoughts on this? Do you think a full public inquiry is required?

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

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

You know, we're getting into the sublime here. We've gone beyond the ridiculous. We don't ask the witnesses for an opinion as to what this committee should do. If we want to call for a public inquiry, we can do so, or we can do whatever we want. But it is not a legitimate question to the witnesses to suggest that they advise the committee as to what we should do.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

The question was not about the committee. The committee has made that decision, Chair. It was a question about tapping into the knowledge that the former ministers have about these procedures, whether a full public inquiry would be helpful at this point in time.

[Reg Alcock]

I'm prepared to offer an opinion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

I question the relevance of the question. The committee has already spoken. We have a motion. The motion was communicated to Minister Day. As far as the committee is concerned, the matter is done; it's over.

But if Mr. Wrzesnewskyj wants to use his time on that question, I'll allow him, but again, it's his nickel.

[Reg Alcock]

I think there are a couple of things. I don't need to repeat all that has been said about the importance of the RCMP. My father was a member of the force. I think a lot of Canadians who are watching what's going on are very distressed. I simply know that, particularly with a very unique organization like this, when matters of this sort have come up in the past, the previous government, headed by Prime Minister Paul Martin, called a full and open and independent inquiry to get to the bottom of it. I'm proud of what we did.

I realize the opposition is having a little difficulty trying to figure out why they can't convince Canadians that they should give them a majority, and they are rocketing around with these drive-by smearings of everyone.

Mr. Williams, frankly, I think you also owe Madam McLellan an apology. You said in Hansard here that she politically intervened and squelched this inquiry. I think you should offer either some proof of that or you should apologize for it.

I'm sorry, I think this whole thing is a travesty, and I haven't heard anybody who has the class to apologize.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Well, I wouldn't be hanging by my fingernails, Mr. Alcock.

Mr. Wrzesnewskyj, you have two minutes left.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Mr. Gauvin, in previous testimony before us--and you have referenced it again--you said that all moneys had been returned to the pension insurance fund, but approximately $300,000 had not been moved back as yet. Is that correct? Yes or no.

[D/Commr Paul Gauvin]

There were two amounts in the Auditor General's report. One of them was $3.4 million that she said was inappropriately charged to the pension fund. That has been reimbursed. So now the pension fund has that $3.4 million back. It was wrongly coded. It should never have been coded to that.

She also talked about $1.3 million, I believe, of what she called little or no value. Of that, there are still two amounts that we are working on. One of them is with Public Works--the CAC contracts, which were not done as they should have been. We've talked with Public Works and we received $200 million as a refund.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

You mean $200,000.

[D/Commr Paul Gauvin]

I'm sorry, it was a $200,000 refund.

We are still discussing the balance, and we are still arguing. We have exchanged a number of letters where they say that 70% of their files were clean and therefore they gave us back one-third. We're saying we want the whole thing back.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you.

If you could provide it to the committee, that would be helpful.

There was an e-mail that laid out the famous St. Andrews-by-the-Sea golf game. There were allegations of hospitality inappropriately being charged to the pension fund. You said that it's just certain component parts that have not been returned.

You were one of the beneficiaries. You played golf. Maybe at that time you weren't aware of the problems surrounding that golf game. You mentioned you went for ethics training after the Ontario Provincial Police investigation.

Have you cut a cheque to return the moneys to the pension fund for that particular golf game?

[D/Commr Paul Gauvin]

No, I haven't, but if that's an issue, I will be pleased to do so. I don't think anybody else has either, because that golf game--we didn't know that was charged to the room or to the pension fund.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

We have known for months, sir.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much. That's it, Mr. Wrzesnewskyj.

Mr. Fitzpatrick is next for seven minutes.

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Gauvin, you mentioned that Mr. Crupi maybe hit a stone wall with procurement in the RCMP--probably with Public Works in the regular channels. Through some collusion, and so on, he managed to link up with somebody in the CAC group to continue procuring questionable contracts, at best, with pension moneys from the RCMP.

Who was in that cell? Do you know? What names would the committee want if there was collusion there? Who besides Mr. Crupi was involved with that? As the comptroller, you'd certainly know who those people were.

[D/Commr Paul Gauvin]

There's one name that has been mentioned here in the committee already, and I believe it is Frank Brazeau.

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

But were there any other people with the RCMP?

[D/Commr Paul Gauvin]

As I mentioned, the individual responsible for this project--and he has been before the committee--was Dominic Crupi. So between him and a couple of his officers, there definitely was collusion with CAC.

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Do you know if there was any collusion with a David Smith as well?

[D/Commr Paul Gauvin]

I have no idea, sir. Those are issues that you could discuss with CAC itself or the Department of Public Works.

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

This information comes forward from a KPMG audit, which I find quite disturbing. If you actually read this audit, it's very serious.

To your understanding, who was behind getting this audit going? It's something that happened after the police investigation was over, and so on, and it's quite revealing.

[D/Commr Paul Gauvin]

It's a good question, sir.

As for what happened within CAC, they found that there were issues with some of the RCMP contracts, but also contracts with a whole lot of other departments, and therefore Consulting and Audit Canada was not working the way it should have. As a result of that, the auditors called for a report from KPMG, and a number of substantial changes were made to that particular organization.

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

I'm running out of time, but I think you've pretty well covered my point.

Mr. Alcock, the KPMG report came out on December 5, 2005. I know that was during an election campaign, but was that report brought to your attention by your officials? Were you briefed at all?