Zaccardelli: Perjury the Sequel

Jeff Sallot usually has well written interesting articles. I like the bit about the laughter when Zaccardelli claims -no doubt with a straight face-- that the RCMP does not use transfers as punishment. Well no doubt some are not punishments!


Zaccardelli admits cancelling criminal probe of pension fund
JEFF SALLOT

From Tuesday's Globe and Mail

OTTAWA — Former RCMP commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli admitted yesterday that he "cancelled" a criminal investigation into irregularities in the administration of the Mountie pension fund in 2003.

"When I heard that somebody was trying to have a criminal investigation, it was inappropriate at that time and that's why I cancelled it," Mr. Zaccardelli told reporters after a heated session of the House public accounts committee in which three witnesses contradicted various aspects of the former commissioner's testimony.

At one point during the hearing, former staff-sergeant Ron Lewis, the Mountie who initiated the criminal investigation, turned to Mr. Zaccardelli and said: "He's telling lies. I'm sick of him, and he's doing it under oath."

The two men were seated next to each other at the committee's witness table. They gave contradictory versions of a meeting they had in the commissioner's office in the spring of 2003 to discuss the pension affair.

Mr. Lewis, who is now retired, said he told Mr. Zaccardelli that there were problems with the pension fund that needed investigation.

Mr. Lewis quoted Mr. Zaccardelli as saying to him that he should take his complaints to the commanding officer of the Ottawa-area division of the RCMP and "get a criminal investigation going."

Mr. Zaccardelli said he did not ask that an investigation be commenced. "I can't speak for his [Mr. Lewis's] misunderstanding."

Mr. Zaccardelli said he thought an internal audit was all that was needed at that time.

Committee members looked stunned. "This is not nuance. One of them is lying," New Democrat David Christopherson said.

The committee adopted Mr. Christopherson's motion calling on the minority Conservative government to convene a full-scale judicial commission of inquiry to sort out the contradictions.

Conservative MPs said they might support the call for an inquiry, but not yet. The Tories first want to see the report of a special investigator, lawyer David Brown, who is expected to present his findings in June.

Mr. Zaccardelli said at several points that he did not think the criminal investigation was appropriate. He was not asked by MPs specifically why the internal audit and the criminal investigation could not run on parallel tracks. But responding to shouted questions from reporters as he left the Centre Block on Parliament Hill, Mr. Zaccardelli said he exercised his responsibilities as commissioner and "cancelled" the criminal investigation.

Auditor-General Sheila Fraser reported last November that the RCMP improperly charged at least $3.4-million to the pension fund, but later paid it back. She also said an estimated $1.3-million was charged to the pension and insurance plans "to pay for commissions or products that provided little or no value, and for excessive payments to employees' friends and family members hired as temporary staff. The pension plan has been reimbursed or credited $270,280 of those unnecessary or wasteful expenditures."

Her report refers to the RCMP cancelling the criminal investigation two days after it started -- when an internal audit was begun instead. Her report, however, did not identify Mr. Zaccardelli.

Another Mountie witness, Chief Superintendent Fraser Macaulay, and Mr. Zaccardelli gave contradictory versions of events about how the force was dealing with the pension affair in the summer of 2004.

Mr. Zaccardelli said the chief superintendent told him he had known about problems with the pension fund for about 1½ years, but never came forward because he feared disciplinary action. Mr. Zaccardelli said he thought the chief superintendent had shown poor judgment and could benefit from a two-year transfer to the Department of National Defence. Mr. Zaccardelli denied this transfer was in any way a punishment.

The RCMP doesn't use transfers as a way to punish people, Mr. Zaccardelli said. This remark provoked derisive laughter from several rank-and-file Mounties sitting in the audience.

When it was his turn, Chief Supt. Macaulay testified he never told Mr. Zaccardelli he had known about problems with the pension fund for 1½ years.

Moreover, he viewed his transfer to Defence as punishment. "I was removed because I came forward. Period."

The way he was treated, the chief superintendent said, "was a very clear message to the employees. You don't put your hand up."

In other testimony, Mr. Zaccardelli said that when he eventually got the internal audit report, he acted "quickly and decisively to remove" two civilian administrators who were, in his view, responsible for nepotism and other problems with the fund.

These two administrators, Jim Ewanovich and Dominic Crupi, had a slightly different version. Both denied that they had been forced out under any cloud of suspicion. In fact, Mr. Crupi has found postretirement employment with another federal agency, the top-secret Communications Security Establishment, a position that needs a clearance for security and reliability.

Mr. Zaccardelli resigned as commissioner last December after giving contradictory testimony to another House committee about what he knew and when in the Maher Arar case.