RCMP Watch

Kathryn May, CanWest News Service

Suspended RCMP Deputy Commissioner Barbara George can’t be investigated by the Mounties for perjury because her testimony to MPs is protected by parliamentary immunity, her lawyers told the Federal Court on Thursday.

Lawyer David Scott asked Federal Court Judge Daniele Tremblay-Lamer to halt both the internal and criminal investigations the RCMP recently initiated into George’s conduct after she was thrust into the centre of the force’s pension scandal.

“There is no other way to slice it. Based on testimony given under the protection of parliamentary privilege, Deputy Commissioner George was suspended from the force and subject to allegations being investigated,” Scott argued. “We say the court should intervene and protect her from an invasion of this privilege.”

George, who has spent nearly 30 years in the RCMP, is the only senior Mountie to be disciplined in the fallout of the pension crisis that erupted when a handful of RCMP officers accused senior management of coverup and corruption. She also wants the court to quash her suspension and reinstate her as the force’s chief human resources officer.

She found herself at the centre of the controversy when she and other witnesses gave conflicting testimony about a police investigation into the pension funds during committee hearings held on Feb. 21 and March 28.

RCMP Staff Sgt. Mike Frizzell was later removed from the Ottawa police investigation into the funds.

The hearing came a day after an assistant commissioner contradicted George and told MPs at the Commons public accounts committee that she asked him to remove Frizzell. George has appeared twice at committee and both times adamantly insisted she had nothing to do with Frizzell’s removal.

She has been recalled to testify again on Monday, along with two Mounties whose e-mails appear to contradict her testimony.

Scott said his client was also denied procedural fairness because she was suspended before she was given a chance to tell her version of events before she was suspended and the investigation launched into her role. Scott said his client’s life has been a ‘nightmare’ since the pension scandal erupted, blackening a “sterling career without a blemish.”

He said she’s been treated “grossly unfairly” by colleagues, publicly vilified on television, accused of lying while under oath and suspended from her job even before the parliamentary committee probing the fiasco winds up its hearings.

In fact, Scott noted she is a ‘peripheral’ player, who wasn’t even involved with the pension fund during the years when the funds were mishandled. Instead, she has found herself “centred out” and “victimized by others trying to avoid the spotlight.”

George initially testified at the parliamentary committee on Feb. 21, along with interim Commissioner Beverley Busson and other RCMP executives, to answer questions about the Ottawa police force’s investigation into the pension and insurance funds. A month later, on March 28, the group of dissident RCMP officers and employees testified with their allegations of high-level corruption.

Two days before those explosive hearings, Scott said Busson asked George to step aside to appease the group, but assured her she accepted the “veracity” of her version of events. The two signed an agreement that George would take education and pre-retirement leave.