Thanks, Mr. Chair.
I've been looking forward to these two days, because I think it's a good opportunity for us, for the most part, to look forward. I want to use this opportunity, this meeting, to set the record straight a little bit.
I continue to be amazed at the gall that comes from Mr. Wrzesnewskyj over there. There is one reason why we're here today; it's September 6, 2007, and we're still discussing this issue. Quite simply, it's because for the time period during which you were the minister, Ms. McLellan, in charge of the RCMP, you did absolutely nothing about this.
I want to walk through a two-month timeline, from the end of February 2004 to April 2004. That's three and a half years ago. I'll read directly from the Brown report:
In February 2004, S/Sgt Lewis wrote to the President of the Treasury Board, the Minister responsible for the RCMP
--that would be you--
and to the Auditor General of Canada with respect to the pension plan matters. In this letter, he stated that Commr Zaccardelli had failed “to meet his obligations under the RCMP Act and as our leader, in relation to serious accusations of wrongdoing by senior managers…”.
What did you do with this information? When you were before us last, and I'll quote you, you said:
My office raised the concerns of Staff Sergeant Lewis with then Commissioner Zaccardelli, who indicated that the matter would be turned over to the Ottawa Police Service for independent criminal investigation.
So your response was basically to go straight to Mr. Zaccardelli and say, here it is, and to then just go on your merry way.
I don't understand. I guess ultimately the question that comes out of that is whether your office even read the report in the first place, or Ron Lewis's submission. Second, given that much of it detailed correspondence between the commissioner and Staff Sergeant Lewis, did you not have any concerns whatsoever about the commissioner's independence in the matter? And third, would the fact that Ron Lewis submitted his report to a minister, that he took it to that level, not have raised a red flag that he had concerns about the commissioner's independence?