It's a fairly common name in Ottawa.
Mr. Casey sent the e-mail around saying that this meeting was rescheduled. It was Mr. Roy who replied, “Smooth”. My interpretation of that was everyone had bought the reasoning, even though it was untrue.
Four days later someone from Great-West Life was speaking to Mr. Casey, and her recollection of the conversation was that the way Pat spoke—that's Pat Casey—it almost sounded as if it was a done deal unless the cost was prohibitive. So within four days of being told that Great-West Life could not do the administration of the insurance, it seems there was a done deal with Morneau Sobeco.
That same day a letter was received at NCPC with the proposal from Morneau Sobeco. This is important because you've been told up until now that Great-West Life subcontracted the administration duties to Morneau Sobeco. It's clear from this that Morneau Sobeco made the pitch to NCPC, got approvals, got the thumbs-up to be the administrator, and then later they were concerned about how to make that happen.
At that time the ongoing fees were quoted at $46,000 a month with implementation fees of $450,000. Again this is significant. Great-West Life had just received a quarter of a million dollars for implementation or startup fees, and Morneau Sobeco was going to charge an estimated $450,000. By the time they were done it was over $600,000.
Later that month Mr. Roy and Mr. Casey had another e-mail exchange in which Mr. Roy stated, “Uh-oh, the foxes have the scent”. Mr. Casey's reply seemed to indicate that someone was asking questions about the insurance outsourcing, and he was devising answers that would put her off the scent. Mr. Roy replied, “Sounds good, and we should be able to come out of the closet soon as well”. This would seem to indicate that again they were keeping it well hidden that they were having these negotiations with Morneau Sobeco.
On February 4, 2002, a business case appeared for the insurance outsourcing. It was around this time they realized that if they just went to Morneau Sobeco as the outsourcer, people were going to ask questions. So two consultants, Mr. Casey and Jeff Molson, were sent to Great-West Life to “discuss the possibility of having the Insurance Admin contract with GWL as prime and MS as sub.” Great-West Life would investigate the possibility of this option, but mentioned some concerns. These concerns were that they were stuck in the middle of a deal they didn't want to be part of.
However, a couple of weeks later an e-mail within Great-West Life stated that they had discussed it with their legal department and they were prepared to contract with the RCMP for the services and then subcontract to Morneau Sobeco under certain conditions. So again this shows that Great-West Life was not the administrator at this point, but they were going to be injected into this process.
On March 15, 2002, a final draft of the business case—