Zaccardelli denies coverup in RCMP pension fund scandal

Former RCMP commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli says he never tried to cover up irregularities in the management of the force's pension and insurance fund.

Zaccardelli testifiedMonday before a parliamentary committee that has been investigating allegations of corruption surrounding the RCMP fund.

"I am deeply concerned with the inferences and accusations that have been levied against me in this committee," he said. "I have not had, before today, the opportunity to provide information or responses to questions.

"Such allegations are so completely baseless that I can only surmise that frustration and anger have badly clouded the thinking of the individuals."

On March 28, RCMP officials provided damning testimony to the public accounts committee, saying there were major accounting irregularities in the force's pension and insurance plans in 2002.

The officers said when they tried to report the wrongdoing, they were either stonewalledor punished by top officials in the force, including Zaccardelli.

Some of those same officials appeared as witnesses Monday, alongside Zaccardelli.

But Zaccardellisaid none of them had ever been punished for reporting wrongdoing.

Zaccardellidenied that Chief Supt. Fraser Macaulay, who was sent to work at the Department of National Defence, was punished for reporting his concerns.

Error in judgment

Instead, he said, Macaulay made a serious error in judgment and waited too long to report his concerns to his superiors.

"There is no punishment transfers in the RCMP," Zaccardelli said.

The former commissioneralso testifiedhe immediately ordered an audit of thepension.

When itconfirmed wrongdoing, he said he removed twomanagers from their jobs.

However, the two former managers contradicted Zaccardelli's testimony.

"I felt thatit happened under my watch and thatI wasaccountable, and those are the words I used, and thatI would be resigning," Jim Ewanowich testified Monday.

Dominic Crupi,the other manager,alsosaid that at "no time" did anyone in the RCMP tell him to resign.

Criminal investigation

Zaccardelli alsotestified that he never cancelledthe criminal investigation into the improprieties. Last month, the public accounts committee was told that a criminal investigation into the pension allegations was launched, then cancelled, by Zaccardelli.

"There never was a first criminal investigation," Zaccardelli said to the committee members.

However, retired staff sergeant Ron Lewis, who had alleged at the previous committee meeting that Zaccardelli had orchestrated most of the cover-up, disagreed.

"This is the problem I've had for six years with this man.I keep telling him things, he keeps twisting and he keeps telling lies.I'm sick of it. And he's doing it here under oath."

Zaccardelli said he couldn't explain the discrepancies.

'A quantum leap'

"It is a quantum leap to disagree with someone's managerial decision and to take that disagreement to mean that there is a cover-up or somebody's been involved in a criminal matter.That is what I am stating here today."

Ontario MPDavid Christopherson said one of the men had to be lying.

"They're saying opposite things," said the NDP MP, one of the committee members."So either an order was given that a criminal investigation start or it was not."

After his committee appearance, Zaccardelli seemed to contradict himself.

"When I heard that someone was trying to have a criminal investigation, it was inappropriate at that time, and that's why I cancelled it," he told reporters.

Prior to Monday's testimony, Zaccardelli had said little about the allegations, except to call them "baseless."

He resigned as RCMP commissioner in December after admitting he had given incorrect testimony to another parliamentary committee, which was looking intothe Maher Arar affair.