(CBC News) – MPs voted Thursday to find the RCMP’s deputy commissionerin contempt of Parliament, accusing her of misleading the House of Commons with the testimony she provided into the so-called pension scandal.
The motion to find Barbara George in contempt was introduced by Liberal Shawn Murphy, who heads the public accounts committee that heard her testimony.
“I move … that the House of Commons find Barbara George in contempt of Parliament for providing false and misleading testimony to the House of Commons standing committee of public accounts on Feb. 21, 2007,” Murphy said.
While MPs voted to pass the motion, they will not take any additional action against George. Murphy has said there is no need to punish her further because the finding of contempt itself is a very serious sanction.
It implies that a person offended the authority or dignity of the House of Commons. Those found in contempt could be jailed, but in past cases, most have been simply handed a stern rebuke or asked to apologize.
RCMP mulls the ruling
Liberal MP Mark Holland, who is also a member of the public accounts committee, said it’s now up to the Mounties to look into George’s testimony.
“It is quite a condemnation by Parliament,” he wrote in an email statement. “It is a very rare move.”
Commissioner William Elliott is considering the finding and will eventually decide how to proceed, according to RCMP spokeswoman Const. Pat Flood. She said George is presently on leave, but is still an employee of the national police force.
“We take this … action by the House of Commons very seriously,” she said. “This is unprecedented in recent history of the organization.”
The CBC’s Allison Crawford, reporting from Ottawa, said if the RCMP decided it wants to launch its own investigation, it would be hampered because George’s testimony is protected by parliamentary privilege and can’t be used as evidence.
George said she wasn’t involved in officer’s removal
George, testifying before the public accounts committee in February 2007, and again in December, insisted she wasn’t involved in Staff-Sgt. Mike Frizzell’s removal from an RCMP-Ottawa police probe into the management of the Mounties’ $12-billion pension and insurance plans.
But Frizzell told the committee George engineered his removal from the joint probe into how RCMP pension and insurance plans were run. Documents indicate George was involved in e-mail traffic about Frizzell’s move.
The pension flap dates back to 2003, with whistleblower allegations of mismanagement, nepotism, questionable expense claims, and contracts given to consultants who did little or no work for their money.
An independent investigation into the scandal concluded in June that former RCMP commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli shook public trust in the police force by permitting the controversy to drag on for years.
Toronto lawyer David Brown, who led the federally appointed investigation, described the RCMP corporate culture as “horribly broken.”
He said the force’s management had mishandled the employee pension fund, but found no evidence to support allegations of a coverup by top RCMP officials.
Elizabeth May pushes for inquiry
Meanwhile, the leader of Canada’s Green Party was calling for an inquiry into another RCMP matter — the income trust scandal.
Elizabeth May said Zaccardelli’s motives during the fiasco must be probed, and his reasons for not testifying to investigators about the matter need to be examined.
“For the RCMP to retain its credibility and the public trust, and for democracy to function, we can’t turn a blind eye to this,” May said Thursday. “We need to make sure Canadians realize that this little story that went by very quickly … is not the end of the day.”
She said she would urge other parties to support her call for an inquiry.
The income trust fiasco began in November 2005, when there was an unusual spike in stock market trading just hours before the reigning Liberals announced their government would not impose a tax on income trusts. Many suspected the announcement had been leaked to Bay Street.
Zaccardelli declared the RCMP was launching a full-fledged criminal investigation into the matter, but he made the announcement during the height of the federal election campaign in December.
Days later, the Conservatives took the lead from the Liberals in the polls, and ultimately won the January 2006 election. Critics have accused Zaccardelli and the RCMP of influencing the election.
The independent Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP led a probe into the matter in March and ruled that no wrongdoing had taken place. However, the commission noted that Zaccardelli had refused to answer any questions or participate in the probe.
Only one charge was ever laid in the income-trust case; Serge Nadeau, a Finance Department bureaucrat, was accused of using inside information to personally profit from trades in income trust shares. He was charged with breach of trust and has yet to face trial.
About time. Now that she is cited for contempt we will see if management moves to internal discipline. I believe the first excuse was that they could not use the testimony because of “parliamentary privilege”. Being cited for contempt is definitely conduct unbecoming.
RCMP officer cited for contempt
(Globe and Mail) – The House of Commons voted Thursday to find RCMP Deputy Commissioner Barbara George in contempt of Parliament. The vote was held shortly after 10 a.m. EDT Thursday and supported by all four party House leaders, said Liberal MP Shawn Murphy.
It’s not clear what this means for George. In theory, the rarely used contempt procedure could carry punishment ranging from admonishment to jail time.
Murphy, chair of the Commons public accounts committee, said jail time is out of the question.
“It was just a statement of our rebuke,” he said.
“This is a very confusing area of the law. It’s a very complex. Systems that we operate under here are arcane and they go back centuries.”
Fellow committee member and Liberal MP Mark Holland said in an e-mail to The Canadian Press that the matter now falls to the Mounties.
“It is quite a condemnation by Parliament,” he wrote. “It is a very rare move.”
RCMP spokeswoman Constable Pat Flood said Commissioner William Elliott is considering the finding and will eventually decide how to proceed.
Deputy Commissioner George is currently on leave but is still an RCMP employee, Constable Flood added.
“We take this report and the report on the incident and the action by the House of Commons very seriously,” she said.
“This is unprecedented in recent history of the organization.”
Calls to Deputy Commissioner George’s residence and her lawyer weren’t immediately returned.
The parliamentary procedure to cite Deputy Commissioner George for contempt was launched in February when the 12-member public accounts committee voted unanimously to recommend her for contempt, asserting that she deliberately misled MPs.
The committee members had all taken issue with Deputy Commissioner George’s testimony, in which she told MPs with “absolute finality” that she did not have “anything whatsoever to do” with allegations a Mountie investigating the misappropriation of RCMP pension funds was removed from the file.
When e-mails and other testimony later contradicted her, Deputy Commissioner George was given the opportunity to explain during a two-hour appearance before the committee in December. She repeatedly denied that she ever misled or lied to the committee.
“That’s her story and she’s sticking to it,” said John Williams, a Conservative MP on the committee. “She should have resigned and apologized. Had she apologized to the committee, the committee would have accepted that apology and nothing else would have happened.”
Mr. Murphy and other committee members say they had no choice but to recommend the full House of Commons cite Deputy Commissioner George for contempt.
“It’s the only recourse that we have. There is nothing else,” Mr. Williams said. “We can’t say, ‘Well, we have a choice between a fine, imprisonment, admonishment’ or anything. You know we don’t have an array of things. We have only one – contempt. That is the only thing that we can do.”
Contempt of Parliament proceedings have been used only a handful of times in the past 100 years. Former privacy commissioner George Radwanski was cited in 2003 after the government operations and estimates committee felt he misled them with his testimony regarding allegations of wrongdoing at the commission. Mr. Milliken ruled then there was a prima facie question of privilege, but Mr. Radwanski apologized and the matter was over.
The MPs say contempt of Parliament is used so rarely because situations are often murky. But they believe the case of Ms. George is “black and white.”
When the same committee held public hearings into in the sponsorship scandal, there was some discussion of using the contempt measure against certain witnesses, said Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj. But no one was “absolutely sure” about their testimony, so they did not proceed.
This case is different, he argued: “Although it’s been looked at a number of times, this was the only case that nobody seemed to have reservations with the report the way we wrote it.”
Committee members said they also hope their actions will send a message to other potential committee witnesses.
“All we ask is the truth; surely that’s not much to ask for,” Mr. Williams said.