Public Accounts Committee on June 12th, 2007

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Brian Fitzpatrick]

We can check that out.

We're running out of time here, folks. The bell is going to start ringing. I have a long list here of three people. I'm going to cut it down to three minutes, and hopefully we can get everyone in before the bells force us out of here.

Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you.

I have three minutes?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Brian Fitzpatrick]

Yes. Sorry, but you can handle it.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Sure. Thanks.

I want to read something and then ask a question.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chairman. I would simply like to remind that I advised you earlier that I would be moving a notice of motion.

[A voice]

There is a motion here, on the table.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

I just want to make sure we will have enough time. It will only take two minutes.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Brian Fitzpatrick]

We'll hear your motion when we wrap this up.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Staff Sergeant Frizzell testified, and I quote:

They have the meeting, and Great-West Life is told by NCPC, “Keep it quiet that you're not going to do the administration. You guys should go see Morneau Sobeco. You just got them as a pension outsourcer. They're going to do the pension administration, and I'm sure they can do your insurance administration at the same time.” Then there is an e-mail from Great-West Life to NCPC stating: “Following the meeting in Ottawa that our members attended, it was our understanding that your investigation into an alternate service provider was to be treated as confidential and not to be shared with our resources.” They decided to cancel the next meeting because they didn't have an outsourcer, and they had to look for one. An e-mail is sent out to let everybody know the meeting is cancelled, but they're not told why. The e-mail reads that some of the members of the project team couldn't be there, so they were going to cancel the January 7 meeting “due to the scheduling conflicts of some team members”. This is from one of the people who knows Great-West Life isn't doing the outsourcing any more, or doing the administration. One of his co-conspirators—for lack of a better term—writes back to him giving some feedback on the e-mail, just one word: “Smooth”.

Staff Sergeant Frizzell said further:

It was a pretty good deal they had going. Great-West Life was going to be administrator; nobody was going to ask any questions. Mr. Crupi had already committed to that insurance outsourcing happening. He was going to bring in both insurance and pension outsourcing. When some hiccups came in along the way, they found ways around them. How this happened in our organization is beyond me. I've asked that question very many times. I have a very hard time believing that Mr. Crupi would have been so bold as to do all that on his own.

And then you've already raised the discussion you had with Mr. Gork.

Now, Mr. Roy, you sent an e-mail to Mr. Casey. In it, you responded that you thought his dealings in cancelling the meeting were--and I quote--“smooth”.

Staff Sergeant Frizzell again:

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.

He further said:

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.

Mr. Roy, what do you have to say about those e-mails? They look very incriminating, sir, in light of the allegations of Staff Sergeant Frizzell and Chief Superintendent Macaulay.

[Garry Roy]

So we find out that Great-West Life can't provide us the service. We pretty much have just spent $250,000 and we have no value for it. We've had a team working on this for a number of months. That work has to be analyzed to see if we can salvage anything.

Basically, we needed to buy some time to figure out what our next steps were going to be. That's why I was.... It was basically a thanks. We had determined that we needed some time to find out what our next steps would be.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

But in doing this, you're avoiding--

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Brian Fitzpatrick]

We have to move along, Mr. Christopherson. We're out of time.

Before we move to Mr. Wrzesnewskyj, we'll swear in Fraser Macaulay. We'll just stop the clock. We're rushed for time here, and I want to deal with everybody who's on the list.

Mr. Macaulay, please take a seat.

[Chief Superintendent Fraser Macaulay, Chief Superintendent, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

I, Fraser Macaulay, do swear that the evidence I shall give on this examination shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Brian Fitzpatrick]

Thank you very much.

We'll turn it over to Borys for three minutes.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Macaulay, we've heard from Assistant Commissioner Gork that he wasn't aware that the materials he provided to an officer candidate...that this was inappropriate. But this officer candidate, Carma Mackie, realized it, and reported it.

You did an investigation. Who did you report to?

[C/Supt Fraser Macaulay]

Who did I report to at that time?

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Yes.

[C/Supt Fraser Macaulay]

Barb George.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

We heard from Assistant Commissioner Gork that she was not in the loop. But you reported on this to Barb George?

[C/Supt Fraser Macaulay]

Barb George was aware of it; she was my immediate supervisor and was aware of the matter.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

I understand she was the head of office staffing at the time. Would she have had to support a promotion to assistant commissioner?

[C/Supt Fraser Macaulay]

She was head of executive development and officer resourcing, so she was on the committee and was the person who assisted in senior executive selection for senior promotions.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Okay, thank you.

So we've heard from a deputy minister that the contracting was rigged in this whole process. We've also heard vis-à-vis Commissioner Zaccardelli that the criminal investigation that began in 2003 was shut down two days later. Pressure kept building and building and building. Finally, in the spring of 2004, Commissioner Zaccardelli was forced to have an arm's-length criminal investigation by the Ottawa Police.

Mr. Gork, who came to you and requested that you be the liaison? Was it former Commissioner Zaccardelli?

[A/Commr David Gork]

No, it was Barb George who asked me, and then I took it to Deputy Commissioner Loeppky, who was my line officer.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

So Deputy Commissioner Barb George is the person who asked you to investigate.

We've heard that you did in fact have input into the criminal investigation. With hindsight, you stated that you shouldn't have sent that e-mail to one of the investigators, Mr. Frizzell. You've also stated that you didn't sign the memorandum of understanding—but it names you. It says that the investigator, Mr. Roy, reported to you; it's doesn't say he reported to Chief Bevan, but to you. And Deputy Commissioner Gary Loeppky signed off on it.

So was this in fact an arm's-length investigation?