RCMP whistleblowers should be honoured, says Commons committee

Kathryn May, Ottawa Citizen

A group of RCMP officers and a civilian employee who jeopardized their careers to get the force’s brass to investigate the mismanagement of the Mounties’ pension fund should be given commendations by Parliament, recommended the Commons committee investigating the scandal.

The recommendation comes from MPs on the public accounts committee, who heard testimony Thursday from officials at the RCMP’s oversight agencies that future whistleblowers would face the same hardships and reprisals.
Each testified how their agencies are advisory bodies and don’t have the authority to do anything more than make recommendations to the commissioner of the RCMP. “I think we saw here today how the whole system broke down and the governance structures just aren’t there,” said Liberal MP Shawn Murphy who chairs the committee. “There has to be a restructuring of the RCMP with the necessary checks and balances that you would expect to see in a modern day police force.”

MPs unanimously passed a motion by Conservative MP David Sweet that the original group of Mounties who blew the whistle on the pension fiasco be publicly commended and that commendation be tabled in Parliament.

The accolades go to the group of five that special investigator David Brown exonerated in his report into the pension scandal — Denise Revine, the human resource director who first uncovered the misuse of pension funds; her boss Chief Superintendent Fraser Macaulay; retired Staff-Sgt. Ron Lewis; Staff-Sgt. Steve Walker and Staff-Sgt. Mike Frizzell, the RCMP investigator who was removed from the Ottawa Police Service’s criminal investigation into the affair.

Six months ago, the five stunned MPs with allegations of investigations delayed, meddled with and even stopped as they got too close to the top brass. They alleged that executives used their power to override rules, investigators were punished, whistleblowers sidelined, and evidence buried.

Former RCMP Commissioner Beverley Busson gave the five the force’s most coveted award, the Commissioner’s Commendation, for outstanding service, during a private dinner in June at an Ottawa restaurant. But Sweet also extended the commendation to Assistant Commissioner Bruce Rogerson, who came to tears during his emotional testimony on how his career was derailed in 2001 and he was effectively “fired” for trying to stop RCMP managers from accepting freebies from contractors.

He said he warned the five that if RCMP brass could try to destroy the career of “an assistant commissioner with 29 years unblemished record, they could do it to anyone.” But MPs were frustrated when they learned how little has changed within the RCMP to ensure another pension scandal doesn’t happen again.

MPs chided the RCMP’s ethics advisor, Sandra Conlin, for not doing more to ensure whistleblowers are protected and an unethical culture is transformed. She said her office was studying various reforms, but was confident a change in leadership under the RCMP’s new civilian commissioner, William Elliott, would help turnaround the force. But MPs said relying on a more ethical leadership isn’t enough.

They argued the RCMP needs more checks and balances and the power of the commissioner should be challenged.

The ethics advisor, along with other oversight agencies, the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP, and the RCMP External Review Committee, can make recommendations, but it is up to the commissioner to decide whether to adopt them.