Public Accounts Committee on May 14th, 2007

[D/Commr Paul Gauvin]

Yes, but they contract on behalf of the RCMP; there's no question about that.

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

But you must watch the outflows that go out of the RCMP to other agencies, or...you had to make a bunch of readjustments on the $570,000 that went out wrong, and so on. You're the chief financial officer; the buck stops with you, sir, on those kinds of transactions.

[D/Commr Paul Gauvin]

That's right.

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Don't tell me somebody else is to blame on it.

[D/Commr Paul Gauvin]

I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is that when we got an invoice for $570,000, we didn't have any place to charge it, so we immediately investigated it--

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

I have a question for Mr. Lavoie. I've heard your answer, sir. You keep on bringing up this privacy issue, and this fellow here has said that, well, he can't release stuff because there are privacy issues here.

I'm a member of Parliament, and there are taxpayers and RCMP members who are wondering what in the heck has been going on with the money here. For some people to say they can't inform these people because there are privacy issues involved here....

There are people who may have their finger in the cookie jar or may have carried out acts of misconduct, but their privacy rights are more compelling than the public interest and the right of RCMP members to know what in the world is going on with their money. How do we rationalize this? If your argument is correct and Mr. Gauvin's right, this privacy thing is almost an absolute shield against people finding the truth to wrongdoing.

[Supt Pierre Lavoie]

What was the question, sir?

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

How do we balance these interests? I want to know what's going on here. I'm a member of Parliament. If money has been misspent, I think I have a right to know it, and I don't like privacy people telling me they can't tell me because they think it's private.

[Supt Pierre Lavoie]

Unfortunately, it's a reality of my life. When I process a file, I have to take into account two acts: the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act. I can't do anything about that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you, Mr. Fitzpatrick.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

In the last testimony, Mr. Gauvin referred to a legal opinion he received regarding the application of funds to different accounting lines. I would ask for that legal opinion also to be tabled forthwith to the committee, along with the minutes of the PAC meeting that I had referred to as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mr. Gauvin, I would ask you to table those documents.

[D/Commr Paul Gauvin]

We will send that in, sir.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you.

Before we go to Mr. Christopherson, I have one question for you, Mr. Gauvin. I want your full answer on this.

You're the chief financial officer of this institution. The committee has heard a lot of testimony. You were successful in getting budget increases, according to testimony earlier today.

I want to question you on the dismissal of Denise Revine. She was there for 33 years. She had an impeccable record. The evidence that the committee has heard is that one day someone went into her office; she wasn't to touch any more files, and she was being laid off or declared excess to establishment. The reason that has been advanced before this committee is that the RCMP had no money to pay her; it was a budgetary issue. As the chief financial officer of this institution, do you think it's reasonable that the committee should buy that explanation?

[D/Commr Paul Gauvin]

No, I don't, sir.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much.

[D/Commr Paul Gauvin]

Can I expand on that for one second?

Mr. Poilievre gave me way too much credit. I didn't really double the budget of the organization. I was certainly at the centre of the transactions, but there were a whole lot of other people involved. The fact that certain events happened, such as 9/11, obviously helped. It was not a good event, but it certainly increased the budget of the organization, as well as contracting police, and we got a lot of money. Anyway, no, I don't agree that it was the right thing to do.

If I can say one other thing, HR had a pretty big budget. On top of that, we also gave them additional funding every year because they had lots of issues. How they used that money was up to them, but I don't think it would have been fair just to say a position is cancelled versus another.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

You're saying that the committee should not buy that explanation at all.

[D/Commr Paul Gauvin]

No, they should not.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mr. Christopherson is next, for five minutes.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's tough to do in five minutes. I don't know if Mr. Spice is coming back. I almost wish we had him in here earlier.

You mentioned the poisoned work environment you found around this issue and you had a chance to comment on broader issues. How much further does that poisoned work environment go, in your opinion?

[A/Commr John Spice]

Do you mean outside of Ottawa?

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

No, outside the instant case we're dealing with, and the people who were affected. Is it something you see culturally as a problem, or was it a relatively isolated issue, where you found this poisoned work environment?

[A/Commr John Spice]

I believe this particular situation was the worst-case scenario.

I had a meeting with a lady--and I'm not going to mention her name here--but she worked in that environment with Mr. Crupi, and she was frightened of that man.

You have to understand my position as the ethics adviser. I was on the main floor of headquarters building and you would actually see people walk back and forth in front of the office until there was nobody in the hall, and then they would duck into my office. So there was a stigma attached to going to see the ethics adviser.

This poor woman agonized over coming to see me, but she did not want me to intervene, because if I was unsuccessful her life was going to continue to be miserable. The helplessness that you see in employees.... And believe me, I had a box of Kleenex in my office and I used to tell people that it was there to get rid of my Nicorette gum, so that I didn't put it through the wash at home, but it was there for the individuals who came in to see me. More often than not I had people break down in tears over issues that were occurring in their work environments.

I reported that. I spoke to the commissioner. I spoke to the deputy commissioners. God, I spoke to everybody I could speak to regarding the behaviour, and no one was held accountable. I was not in the position to hold people accountable. I was there to report upon wrongdoing. And in so reporting that wrongdoing, people ought to have been held accountable.

It went to a point that the commissioner spoke to me one day and said: “John, some of the COs and the deputies think you're being involved in too much, and they really don't understand this role of the senior officer for internal wrongdoing in the workplace.” I said: “Commissioner, it's not from a lack of communicating, because I've spoken at every new officers' course that comes out. I've spoken at SMT. I've spoken at SEC. I've sent out communiqués on the role of senior officers. So if they're not understanding it, there's something wrong.”

At any rate, I go on.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Okay. Thank you for that. And I was allowing you to go on.

I'm going to mention a couple of things. I know I'm going to run out of time before I'm finished, so I'm just going to run like hell.

I want to just say this to Mr. Estabrooks--and he may get a chance to comment. This potential delay, if the delay was purposeful in terms of the legal things and everything, if it's ultimately proven by the public inquiry, which I believe still will happen, that this was a delay, it could play into the statute of limitations issue we ran into, where people who were found to be held accountable couldn't be because the time limitations had expired. So it might be interesting to see whether or not there is a linkage to some deliberate ragging the puck, and then something that was key in all of this that just happened to turn on a statute of limitations issue.

Mr. Lavoie, what is your understanding, sir, of what happened on the day Mr. Estabrooks is talking about, when Mr. Gauvin's assistant went in? What is your understanding of what took place?