Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.
On February 21, 2007, Chief Vince Bevan appeared before this committee and committed the Ottawa Police Service to full and complete cooperation with this committee. The Ottawa Police Service remains committed to assisting this committee in their deliberations. I share that commitment.
I wish therefore to make a very brief opening statement to assist the committee with issues that remain outstanding from my last testimony. I also wish to point out that at my last appearance, I was asked to prepare a written response to questions surrounding my involvement with Staff Sergeant Frizzell, who was at the time of the investigation a sergeant. I am submitting a detailed brief to you in that regard.
I wish to make only two points in my opening remarks, the first about the independence of the Ottawa Police investigation and the second about Sergeant Frizzell.
With respect to the independence of my investigation, I will not repeat all the comments I made in my opening statements delivered before you on April 18, but I stand by what I said then. I would like to emphasize that I was in charge of this investigation and reported to Chief Bevan, not to anyone in the RCMP. I only contacted Assistant Commissioner Gork when I had administrative matters to deal with. Nobody from the RCMP, at any rank, or indeed from anywhere else, attempted to influence me in any way.
Normally in policing, an officer reports to a superior. That superior is responsible for the officer both administratively and operationally. For example, Sergeant William Sullivan of the Ottawa Police Service worked on this investigation, and he reported to me administratively and operationally. In situations in which officers are on secondment, they report to one supervisor for operational matters and report to another supervisor with their parent organization for administrative matters. This was the relationship I had with Sergeant Frizzell. He was responsible to me operationally for work related to the investigation, and responsible to his superiors at the RCMP for administrative matters such as leave, discipline, and other employment-related matters. This is not an unusual situation in policing. I went to Assistant Commissioner Gork for all administrative issues regarding the RCMP officers assigned to this investigation. For operational decisions, I gave the orders directly to the RCMP officers assigned to my investigative team.
As to my interaction with Sergeant Frizzell, during the investigation there were a number of situations that arose. While he and I agreed on many issues, we also disagreed on many other issues. I consulted with Chief Bevan on this, and he encouraged me to raise these issues with Assistant Commissioner Gork, which I did. I provided details in my written submission.
Sergeant Frizzell was not “prematurely removed” from the investigation. With the delivery of my report to Chief Bevan on June 17, Project Probity was finished. The order dealing with Sergeant Frizzell, signed by Chief Superintendent Lang, was dated June 20, after the delivery of the final report to Chief Bevan on June 17.
By June 20, 2005, the date of the order, the investigation was over, and most of the rest of the team had returned to their regular duties. Only seven persons out of the 23 involved in the investigation were left, and they were just wrapping up.
I welcome any questions you may have.
Thank you.