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National Post - Don Mills,Onta
15 May 2007

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Royal Canadian Mounted Police

Former Mounties ethics officer

OTTAWA - The RCMP has a culture of covering up corrupt behaviour and abuse of power that contributed to the kind of wrongdoing involved in the scandal over the Mountie pension fund, nepotism and alleged sweetheart contracts to friends, a serving officer and the force's former ethics adviser say.

An officer with 31 years service who served as a representative of RCMP rank and file in the force's internal staff association was so concerned Monday about possible retaliation that he asked a Commons committee investigating the pension affair to assure him of legal protection following his testimony.

Staff Sgt. Andre Girard, who claimed his career suffered after he attempted to obtain copies of an investigation into possible wrongdoing with the pension fund, said RCMP divisional staff representatives deal with internal harassment on a broad scale.

"They know about the harassment going on, they know about the sexual harassment going on, they know about the coverups going on in the field and they are scared to come forward," Mr. Girard said. "There is always a certain degree of frightness, if I should say so, to come forward, to step forward and to express ourselves freely, even in this democracy, especially in a paramilitary organization such as the RCMP."

Mr. Girard shocked MPs when he said a major problem he faced as a staff representative was "institutional protectionism, anything to protect the image of the organization, sometimes at all costs ..."

Under questioning, Mr. Girard claimed RCMP officers learn to cover up mistakes from the moment they join the force.

"That is one thing that you are taught from training ... that's what I learned in training, to cover yourself always, the more you advance in this organization, you see a lot of things going on, you see members protecting themselves," he told the committee.

A former RCMP assistant commissioner who served as the force's ethics adviser and was present at the committee hearing, confirmed Mr. Girard's view of the internal RCMP culture.

"I would agree," the retired officer, John Spice, told NDP MP David Christopherson. "During my tenure as ethics adviser I dealt primarily with bad behaviour and I was working probably 12 and 14 hours a day and sometimes on weekends."

"We should have had zero tolerance for all sorts of unethical behaviour and quite frankly as much as I would like to say that we tried, we failed miserably," he said.

The two officers spoke after a top Mountie denied allegations during earlier testimony in the inquiry that he interfered with the processing of an Access to Information Request over an investigation into the pension-fund wrongdoing or that he had kept records of improper or illegal requests former RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli had given him.

Deputy Commissioner Paul Gauvin said he had been asked for his opinion about the release of documents which mentioned him only as a routine process under privacy provisions. Another retired officer, Pierre Lavoie, also challenged earlier claims, saying he did not delay the release of documents about an Ottawa police investigation into the pension fund and instead contributed to their eventual release by confronting other officers.

Mr. Spice praised the determination of RCMP officers and a civilian employee whose determination to expose wrongdoing in the pension fund led to an internal audit, an investigation by Auditor General Sheila Fraser and the committee inquiry.

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National Post - Don Mills,Onta15 May 2007

Former Mounties ethics officer

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National Post - Don Mills,Onta
15 May 2007