Public Accounts Committee on May 7th, 2007

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Of the former staff.

Anyway, it's important. I'll come back to it another time if I get the chance. Thank you for that.

I want to go over to Mr. Crupi.

Mr. Crupi, you will know that the Auditor General, on page 13, paragraph 9.33, said, “The NCPC Director”—that would be you—“circumvented competitions by using Consulting and Audit Canada (CAC) to hire individuals and firms he had already chosen to do work at NCPC.”

The deputies testified that you were relieved of certain authority as a result of this kind of activity. Your answer to that was that you weren't the only one, that there were other managers who had their authority restricted too, because there were other problems with managers. Do you stand by that, sir?

[Dominic Crupi]

I was told by Jim Ewanovich at the time, who was the chief human resource officer, ”Dom, it's not a big deal, a little slap on the wrist”, even though I didn't really know what I was getting slapped on the wrist for. He said that they were having a lot of issues with managers in procurement, that he was going to institute the sign-off process and that we follow the sign-off process, and I was just one of the managers who was to do that. That was my understanding as to how it was to take place.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thanks.

Mr. Marshall, I'll understand if you can't answer this, because it's a structural question, but I want to get at this business of whether Mr. Crupi had specific responsibilities removed. He's suggesting that a process changed and it affected everybody doing that kind of work and it wasn't just him. I'm trying to get at which it was. Was it a structural change that happened to affect him and that's the end of it, or was it specifically Mr. Crupi and he had certain authorities restricted that didn't affect anyone else?

[David Marshall]

Mr. Christopherson, I don't really know. Mr. Gauvin is the one.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Gauvin.

[D/Commr Paul Gauvin]

What I hear now is that within NCPC there were four levels of supervision. As at CAC, some of those levels failed. Our problem was definitely at Dominic Crupi's level. He was doing a lot of work and he had a lot of contracts, and we didn't feel that they were following the rules, so we took the authority away.

It appears the way it was handled within NCPC is that they took the authority away from all of them, and then Jim Ewanovich was the final sign-off.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Was that a fig leaf so that they could actually get at Mr. Crupi?

[D/Commr Paul Gauvin]

I don't know.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Okay, that's fair.

Mr. McEvoy, on page 5 of your report you talked about a response that Mr. Brazeau gave, which you couldn't get. Was it for privacy reasons?

[Greg McEvoy]

I believe so, yes.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

In your opinion, Mr. Marshall, should this report be denied from this committee for privacy reasons too?

[David Marshall]

I'm sorry, Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

It's okay.

On page 5 of the audit report, we know that Mr. Brazeau provided a written response in a draft of this. Is that correct, Mr. Brazeau?

[Frank Brazeau]

Yes.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

KPMG was denied that for privacy reasons. I wonder whether we would be able to get access to it.

Mr. Tardi, you may need to jump in here on privacy law.

[Shahid Minto]

Mr. Chairman, may I please answer that?

I reviewed the response, and it did not deal with the substance or any of the items listed in the report. It dealt strictly with his privacy rights, his own personal rights, and the grievance-type procedure.

We can table it, but we'd have to do the privacy motions.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

We have enough privacy. I don't want anything that has no business being here. Is there any reference whatsoever, or is it just personal?

[Shahid Minto]

It did not deal with the substance of the report. There was nothing in the letter that would have helped KPMG in coming to any conclusion on that basis.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Your word is good enough for me, sir. That's fine; I'll drop this.

I want to move on to page 3. Shooting for the top of the page again, we've been here once, and I want to return. This is in your report, Mr. McEvoy:

For the additional NCPC contract reviewed, not involving Mr. Brazeau, we determined that this contract was awarded by CAC to a contractor for services that were already performed.

This is good news for the RCMP:

Further, we were informed that RCMP procurement had refused to award this contract and that Ms. Van Schaik, Senior Consultant arranged for a contract to be awarded with this knowledge.

Could you tell us about that, please?

[Greg McEvoy]

Yes. My understanding was that Ms. van Schaik had some consultants working at the RCMP at the time. She was approached about the possibility of CAC doing contracting for the NCPC. Could something be done about this consultant who had been working without a contract that they had thought the RCMP would be providing, but refused to provide? Could CAC do something about paying this consultant? They did. They arranged to pay this consultant.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Why shouldn't they have been paid in this way?

[Greg McEvoy]

Their consultant was already working for the RCMP. CAC had no knowledge of what they were doing, and the contract was not in place at the time they were working.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I just want to be clear on this. The work was already being done by the RCMP through a contract.

[Greg McEvoy]

The consultant had worked previously at the RCMP. This work was being done without a contract. So they approached CAC to put a contract in place to pay for the work that the consultant had already done.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

All right. Now tell me why that's a problem. It sounds like somebody did some work, and they weren't getting a contract. I am being given the hook here, but can you give an answer to that?