Did they approve all this?
Evidence of meeting #66 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.
Evidence of meeting #66 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.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
4:55 p.m.
As an Individual
From the insurance perspective for pensioners, yes. From the insurance perspective for members, it was information.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
John Williams Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
Were they just kind of rubber-stamping this, like they did in Hollinger, or were they actually reading, understanding, and giving it approval? Was it a rubber stamp or a real committee?
June 12th, 2007 / 4:55 p.m.
As an Individual
I can't believe it was a rubber-stamp committee with a chief financial officer and a chief human resource officer and senior members of the force. We went to great pains. Mr. Molson was there, who walked through every Treasury Board submission, line item by line item, explaining what it was that was going to take place.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
John Williams Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
So Mr. Gauvin can't blame anybody else because he personally would have been fully knowledgeable and briefed and made the decisions as part of the committee.
4:55 p.m.
As an Individual
He would have been part of the committee that would have accepted or not accepted the process moving forward, on the pension committee.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
John Williams Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
I'm trying to understand the relationships. Did you have any contact with Mr. Gauvin other than his sitting on this pension advisory committee? Did you have any relationship of any kind--personal, private, public, in other roles?
4:55 p.m.
As an Individual
No. I had heard of his reputation, and I don't believe I've actually met him. If I have, I don't recall for what reason.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
John Williams Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
I'm at a loss here, Mr. Chairman, so maybe I'll just defer the rest of my time until another point and see if I can get it back.
Thank you.
5 p.m.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Brian Fitzpatrick
Sure.
Maybe I could just ask a few questions that are relevant to this area Mr. Williams was on.
Mr. Gauvin indicated to us clearly that he had taken away your authority to make contracts.
5 p.m.
Conservative
John Williams Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
If I could pick up on that, Mr. Chairman, you never had authority to make contracts, Mr. Crupi, but you did authorize about $6 million in contracts.
5 p.m.
As an Individual
No, sir. I had authority to approve statements of work in terms of the actual work itself. That's my understanding of the authorities I had. Then they would be moved to the proper sign-off processes, and procurement was the ultimate contract provider.
That was my understanding of the authorities I had, sir.
5 p.m.
S/Sgt Mike Frizzell
He's not entirely right. They had a whole list of people who signed, and each one who signed said “Well, I signed because the guy before me signed.”
5 p.m.
Conservative
5 p.m.
S/Sgt Mike Frizzell
Unfortunately, Mr. Crupi was at the beginning of that chain.
5 p.m.
Conservative
John Williams Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
I had a thought in my head here. I've been at this game for too long. I even forgot the question I asked. What was it dealing with?
Yes, you had a $5,000 contracting limit. Mr. Gauvin finally figured that one out; actually, he thought it was $50,000 or $60,000. He said he assigned a supervisor to keep an eye on you. Are you aware of that?
5 p.m.
As an Individual
I certainly was never aware that a supervisor had been assigned. There was a procurement study done by his DG of procurement.
5 p.m.
Conservative
John Williams Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
Mr. Gauvin told us that he knew you were, in his words, “a corrupt individual”, and I apologize for using that in your presence. Nonetheless, I think that's what he said. And he didn't put you on the carpet; he assigned somebody to keep an eye on you. The report came back that you were still at it. Therefore it would suggest that Mr. Gauvin was aware that you were breaking the rules.
5 p.m.
As an Individual
Well, I wasn't aware I was breaking rules. That's the first thing. We were working with his procurement people every step of the way. His procurement people saw every document. His procurement people signed off every document. If they didn't speak to him, I can't answer that question. If his procurement people were not telling him things, I can't answer that question.
There was a procurement study done by the DG of procurement, and he recommended that a procurement person be put into the NCPC to assist us in writing our documents in future.
I want to put it clearly that over a year or two before that I had asked for a procurement person to be brought into NCPC, since we were having so many issues with his procurement people, and we were flatly denied that request.
5 p.m.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Brian Fitzpatrick
We've run out of time on this, but I have a few questions for Mr. Crupi while we're at it.
On the Morneau Sobeco and Great-West Life thing, it seemed to me you were in a kind of lead position on this as far as the outsourcing goes, right?
5 p.m.
As an Individual
Is that on the outsourcing of the pensions? I was the director who was being asked to outsource pensions and was being asked by the insurance committee to modernize the insurances.
5 p.m.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Brian Fitzpatrick
You also stated you thought we had gotten good value from working with this outsourcing with Morneau Sobeco. You also stated that if you had done it in Public Works, it would have probably cost you $70 million.
The difficulty I'm having with a lot of your answers, sir, is that you say you're not involved in procurement and you're not a procurement expert, but it seems to me that you've just offered the opinion of an expert on the cost of procurement here.
5 p.m.
As an Individual
I don't see how you can make that leap, sir. I'm just providing facts that I was told. I don't know. I'm not a procurement expert and have never been a procurement expert. My officers were told to deal with procurement every step of the way, and they did that.