I know there were some concerns about this getting political, but after Mr. Rodriguez's comments, I feel I need to say a few things.
I'm looking at Mr. Sorenson's questions from April 19 and April 21, 2004, and I'll read some of the comments he makes over his four questions. He says:
In fact, it was that commissioner who shut down the initial probe into the possible fraud and abuse of authority within the force. Only after the scandal was made public in the media was the Ottawa police service called in to investigate. [...] Are the Ottawa police investigating the commissioner's conduct as well as the misappropriation of funds?
Later he says:
...the RCMP commissioner's job is to defend and protect past and present members of the force, not to run defence for this scandal plagued government across the way. The mismanagement of pension funds strongly suggests that the RCMP commissioner has betrayed members of the force and, in so doing, has failed to do his job.
Later, on April 21, he says:
...the Minister of Public Safety was quick to defend the commissioner of the RCMP when questioned about his potential involvement in the misappropriation of $4 million... It is the duty of the minister to protect and defend Canadians' interests, including 4,000 RCMP pensioners. Why has the minister prejudged this investigation?
The only comment that the minister made at the time was:
...let me reassure everyone in the House that there is no conduct on the part of the commissioner that needs to be investigated.
Over and over again, Mr. Sorenson went directly to the heart of the matter that we are discussing today, which we've been discussing in this committee: RCMP senior management's covering up the issue.
Over and over again, actually, in your further answers to the questions, you said the one comment, and then you just ignored the question and talked about something completely different every single time.
As for Mr. Wrzesnewskyj's comments, it seems that his main argument in this issue is this: why haven't you uncovered all of our Liberal government's mistakes and mismanagement fast enough? That seems to be the main criticism that he has, that we're not doing enough.
We're trying as hard as we can, Mr. Wrzesnewskyj, but there's a lot of mismanagement to find.
My question is for the minister. You said you spoke regularly with the commissioner, but you never spoke with him about this issue, which I find quite astonishing. It was a very serious issue at the time, so why not? Why did he not bring it up with you when you found out about it? Why didn't you ask why he didn't bring it up with you? It seems that it would be a very serious issue.
Of course, part of the issue was the cover-up, which Mr. Sorenson brought up time and time again. Wasn't there a question in the back of your mind that maybe, by not even bringing it up with you, perhaps he was covering it up from even you?