Paper trail led to RCMP scandal

Canada.com (Complete article has 3 more pages)
Kathryn May, CanWest News ServicePublished: Saturday, April 14, 2007.

Laptops, golf green fees, fudged hotel bills, gifts, travel and contracts, dozens of them -- all charged to account N2020

The crisis rocking Canada's national police force began when Denise Revine, assigned to a routine budget review, stubbornly chased a curious trail of contracts and invoices that led to the secret of an account coded N2020. Revine, a human resources director who worked 36 years for the RCMP, discovered managers who appeared to be using the force's pension plan as a slush fund for millions of dollars in operating expenses that had nothing to do with pensions. Laptops, computers, language classes, an online system for vacation leave, golf green fees, fudged hotel bills, gifts, travel, and contracts, dozens of them -- at inflated prices -- given to friends and families.

All were billed to account N2020, the code that unlocked access to some of the RCMP's $12.4-billion pension plan. Revine knew she had to be right before she said a word about her suspicions. She became obsessed, worked night and day. She kept a daily journal, dutifully chronicling her thoughts and what she found. She meticulously traced every cent billed to that account. She read all the rules, then read them again.She Googled every applicable policy; asked for records; pored over Treasury Board submissions; hunted for business plans and chased invoices, requests and approvals as she incredulously watch the picture unfold: the RCMP's sacred pension monies had become a "cash cow" for unrelated expenses, as well as the mushrooming costs of a runaway plan to outsource the Mounties' pension and insurance plans. "When I came across it, it was absolutely shocking," she told reporters outside after the March 28 public accounts committee hearing.

"I am not an auditor or financial person, but when I started to look at contracts, the amounts and sheer number of them, expenses going on against the books and then the nepotism. It was gross. . . . When you come across it all at once, it's pretty shocking."By the time she stitched it together, Revine reckoned the RCMP had already spent more than $25 million on an ill-conceived plan to modernize the pension plan and turn it over to a private operator to administer.And it had earmarked another $30 million in spending for the next two years to continue the job. That was a far cry from the original business plan, approved by Treasury Board, that estimated the project at $3.6 million.Auditor General Sheila Fraser reviewed the case in November and found the RCMP repaid $3.4 million to the pension plan that was improperly charged. She also found the RCMP spent $1.3 million from the pension and insurance accounts on work of little value and "excessive payments" to families and friends.

The spending was traced to a small unit within the force's human resources directorate called the National Compensation Policy Centre. The centre, which oversees the force's pension and insurance plans, was then headed by director Dominic Crupi, who in turn reported to Jim Ewanovich, recruited from the public service to fill the RCMP's top human resources job.But Revine wasn't alone in turning up problems.