Public Accounts Committee on May 14th, 2007

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

Anybody?

[Supt Pierre Lavoie]

To anybody.

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

Even if your name was in it, or your name was not in it.

[Supt Pierre Lavoie]

Regardless.

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

When did this document get classified as secret?

[Supt Pierre Lavoie]

It came from the Ottawa Police. It was classified as secret on the document itself.

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

So the Ottawa Police say it's secret and that's the same as the federal government saying it's secret.

[Supt Pierre Lavoie]

In my position I have to err on the side of caution.

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

Well, we're not getting too far, Mr. Chairman. We're going around here in circles.

Let's go back to the contracting. I think that was where we actually started off weeks ago.

Mr. Gauvin, you said, one time that you were here, that you removed Mr. Crupi's contracting authority.

[D/Commr Paul Gauvin]

That is true.

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

What was the limit of Mr. Crupi's contracting authority?

[D/Commr Paul Gauvin]

I don't know right off hand. I can send that to you.

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

Do you have any idea? Was it $500,000, $1 million, $100,000, $50,000, $45,000?

[D/Commr Paul Gauvin]

I think he probably had full authority. I don't know, maybe $50,000.

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

He could maybe do contracts up to $50,000. Okay.

You were on the advisory and management committee looking after the pension of the NCPC. Am I correct?

[D/Commr Paul Gauvin]

No. I was a member of the pension advisory committee.

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

And you were the CFO of the RCMP.

[D/Commr Paul Gauvin]

Yes.

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

With the KPMG audit, he was handing out contracts for a total of several million dollars, which according to the audit were questionable or worse. Did none of this come to your attention before it happened?

[D/Commr Paul Gauvin]

We had regular meetings. The project was going very well. We had no idea that the contracting was going as it was.

We heard last week that there was a lot of collusion between the RCMP and Consulting and Audit Canada. That's where the control broke down.

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

And you were the CFO of the RCMP.

[D/Commr Paul Gauvin]

Yes. But I think, sir, if you read some of the other comments given here, including what was given by Shahid Minto last week, when there is collusion, it is very difficult to find.

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

Okay.

Why are we just finding out about this $37,000 being the GST component?

[D/Commr Paul Gauvin]

Why are you finding out? It was always there, sir. I was as surprised as anybody was last week or the week before, when Mr. Frizzell said something about the missing $36,000. It amazed me. It really is accounting 101, lesson one. When you receive cash you have to decide where you're going to credit it. We credit it in the appropriate accounts--pension and a return of GST. You're an accountant, and you would know that.

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

That's a simple transaction. We'll agree on that one.