Evidence of meeting #65 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 gauvin.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:15 p.m.
Superintendent, former Officer in charge of the Access to information and Privacy, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Well, there's nothing wrong with asking for it. The officer in charge has to make a decision if he wants to process the file before giving it to him. But there's nothing wrong with asking for it.
4:15 p.m.
Insp Ian Cowan
Just to clarify around that, I wasn't asking for the files. I was asking for the captions of the files, which are released weekly at headquarters to the deputy level.
In other words, you have a file number, and a request would leave—leaving it out to contents of X, Y, Z, file number 018585, regarding the incident that occurred on such-and-such a date.
That's what I was looking for, the captions, so that Mr. Gauvin could at least understand or have some recollection of these files if it ever came up.
4:15 p.m.
Insp Ian Cowan
They didn't give me an explanation. However—
4:15 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Wouldn't you be a little ticked off? Normally it's information that's available, you want to make your boss happy, it's late on a Friday, so why are they being so difficult over something that, in your opinion, they should just give to you?
4:15 p.m.
Insp Ian Cowan
I don't know why. I can't answer that question.
4:15 p.m.
Insp Ian Cowan
I returned. I spoke to Mr. Gauvin. I made a phone call for Mr. Gauvin for someone higher up in the chain of command.
4:15 p.m.
Insp Ian Cowan
That was Superintendent Tim Cogan, who was the acting director at the time. Mr. Cogan arrived at the office and spoke with Mr. Gauvin. I was not privy to that conversation.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
Mr. Joyal, is that the same Mr. Cogan who attended the meeting that was an attempt to suppress the ATIP?
4:15 p.m.
As an Individual
Yes. At the time, Mr. Cogan was, I guess, the director of PAID. He was acting in the absence of the director, Bernie Corrigan. So he was there as my boss.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
I see.
So Mr. Gauvin requested to have this meeting, which took place in the commissioner's boardroom. They had a synopsis document that they wanted you to replace the ATIP documents, the thousand-page documents, with. You spoke with him—mind you, Mr. Gauvin has no recollection of this meeting—and afterwards, someone from Mr. Gauvin's office called you and chastised you for not helping the boss on this.
I assume that, as a police officer, you take notes during meetings. Did you take notes during that particular meeting?
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
Due to the time limitations here, perhaps you would table that along with the e-mails I asked you to table earlier. Thank you.
Monsieur Picard, you were in charge of ATIP. You were away at that time. Were you fully aware, and did you support Mr. Joyal?
4:15 p.m.
Superintendent, former Officer in charge of the Access to information and Privacy, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Yes, sir.
As a matter of fact, I was on a training process before going to Africa, the Ivory Coast. I came back to my office, and Sergeant Joyal advised me that Mr. Gauvin had been involved in the file. So I decided to write an e-mail to the commissioner, because it was his expense account. I had never written to the commissioner before on a release per se for this kind of situation. But because it was his expense account, he had to know what was going on.
I explained to him that obviously it was not appropriate, and that if we didn't release the document it would probably be more damaging to him by trying to hide the information. At some point we would have to release it anyway.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
4:20 p.m.
Superintendent, former Officer in charge of the Access to information and Privacy, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
If the document was released, I was gone by that point.
4:20 p.m.
Superintendent (Retired), Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Yes, it was. I had just come in at the time, and Mr. Joyal had dealt with the actual release, and I signed off on it.
