Evidence of meeting #60 for Public Accounts in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was rcmp.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
D/Commr Kevin Mole
In 2005, the issue on the ownership of the plan, who had the delegated authority, became a significant problem for the organization, and at that point discussions with Treasury Board started with regard to who would have the delegated authority and who would have the authority to actually pay for the administration.
Conservative
Conservative
John Williams Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
What's your target date for having it all fixed and all the money paid back and everything back the way it should be?
D/Commr Kevin Mole
We hope to go to the Treasury Board ministers as early as September with a submission with a number of options, including the delegation of authority for the plan to the RCMP and the administration costs to be identified and an option to recover the approval for the funding.
Conservative
John Williams Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
On deck B you talk about an agreement in principle by the insurance committee, and also the insurance committee agreed that the plan's funds could be used for the good of the plans.
Perhaps if you don't have the names of who was on the insurance committee at the time, you can table that. Is that possible?
C/Supt Fraser Macaulay
That will be part of the document. Once it's translated, we have the minutes of those meetings and you'll be able to see exactly who was at each decision.
Conservative
John Williams Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
On deck B you also say an “MOU from Director NCPC to GWL”. Who approved that MOU? Was that Crupi?
Conservative
John Williams Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
I'm not passing any judgment. I'm just trying to get some extra information on the record here, Mr. Chairman.
You may recall that I'd asked the commissioner, Ms. Bev Busson, to confirm to this committee whether or not people on Great-West Life payroll were working at the RCMP. Have we had that confirmation yet?
Conservative
John Williams Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
We're still waiting for that. So it seems that may be the case. I would hope that a confirmation is forthcoming soon.
D/Commr Kevin Mole
If I may, certainly during the 1990s, during program review, as I understand it, the intention was that the administration costs for a portion of the National Compensation Policy Centre in headquarters would be paid for from the funds. And the eventual expectation would be that the administration responsibility would transfer over to employees from Great-West Life.
And in fact in 1997, I believe, one employee from Great-West Life arrived to begin working in the policy centre, paid for by Great-West Life, and charged to the plan and identified to the insurance committee as a cost against the plan.
Conservative
John Williams Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
It certainly seems to be perhaps not as above board as it should be. I'm looking at deck D:
Insurance Committee believed they had authority to approve administration outsourcing and $400,000—
Why would the insurance company “believe”? Either they would know or they don't know. On what basis did they come to their own conclusion?
Do you have any comment there, Sergeant Frizzell?
S/Sgt Mike Frizzell
The insurance committee meets once a year. They are folks who know nothing about insurance. They're pulled together into a room. The experts come in from NCPC and say “This is the state of the nation. We need you to vote”—and off they go.
We have different statements on record where they say “We took the lead from NCPC. We had no clue what we were doing.”
Conservative
John Williams Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
Okay. On deck E,
To offset this extra cost a decision was made to take 40% of the insurance administration costs from the pension fund.
A decision was made by whom?
S/Sgt Mike Frizzell
I believe that decision would have been made by Mr. Crupi. He didn't come up with the idea, but he made it happen.
Conservative
John Williams Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
All right.
I'm quite surprised and taken aback by your statement that the money was taken from a fund based on their ability to pay, rather than for service provided. You're confirming that that is the situation? It was taken from a fund regarding their capacity to pay?
