What would motivate a person to cheat the RCMP more than once?
Testimony at the Purblic Accounts Committee alleged that Dominic Crupi continued arrange for sham contracts relating to the RCMP Pension Fund to be directed to a select group of contractors. This after Crupi had been caughting cooking the contracts already. You have to ask yourself why Crupi would take on such a risk. The most obvious answer is startlingly clear.
The testimony at the Public Accounts Committee gets stranger. The investigation into the RCMP Pension Scandal continues. RCMP CFO Paul Gauvin testified that he tried to fix the problem with the misdirected contracts, but that the person tagged as the one responsible managed to find a way to keep the bogus contracts flowing:
Mr. Gauvin said the misuse of funds had nothing to do with his branch and instead revolved around a unit within the force's human resources directorate, called the National Compensation Policy Centre, which oversaw the force's pension and insurance plans.
He said the pension fiasco was the result of a major breakdown of four levels of supervision within the human resources branch then led by Mr. Ewanovich. He told MPs that as soon as he got wind of contracting irregularities at human resources, he revoked director Dominic Crupi's contracting authority and assigned someone to the department to watch him. He told MPs, however, Mr. Crupi got around that by going to Consulting and Audit Canada (CAC), where, in "collusion" with CAC project manager Frank Brazeau, he circumvented the rules and directed contracts to preferred suppliers.
Another audit, completed by KPMG in December 2005, several months after the Ottawa police wound up their investigation, showed many examples of broken rules in the handing out of contracts to outsource the Mounties pension plan. Many of them went through CAC and were handled by Mr. Brazeau, who was later fired. Abotech, a computer consulting firm once headed by former Liberal MP David Smith, was one of the firms that received RCMP contracts from Mr. Brazeau. Mr. Brazeau is a cousin of Mr. Smith and worked on his election campaign.
Now here's my problem. If Gauvin was telling the truth, the Crupi was caught, smacked down, and essentially demoted. He was lucky to keep a job. Heck, he was lucky not to be facing charges. In gratitude for his undeserved good fortune, Gauvin alleges that Crupi redoubled his efforts to manipulate contracts. Why would he do that? What would be worth the risk of possible criminal charges?
Simple. Money.
Whoever was getting the cash for the contracts must have been cutting Crupi on a piece of the action.
But that wasn't Frank Brazeau. As a civil servant, he was being paid a fixed salary. Like Crupi, he had to be receiving a kickback.
So who was actually charging money for this work, money to cover work that was really no work at all? Money that was, for all intents and purposes, pure profit and thus easily shared with co-conspirators Crupi and Brazeau?
I'll let David Smith, former Liberal MP for Pontiac, the owner of Abotech, and Stephane Dion supporter, field that one himself:
"You're a specialist in communication, and you're looking for a specialist in communication. We do an RFP (request for proposal) and we place you. We accept you. We pick up five per cent commission on what you do as work. It's not very hard. How much work is there to do in that? What management is there to do in that? Once a month we send a bill. How much time does it take to send a bill? My wife does that…and we didn't solicit anything in new business after that," [David Smith] said.
Abotech gets all the money for these redirected contracts. So if Crupi and Brazeau were getting paid money for the risks they were taking, enough that Crupi continued to risk those consequences even after had been caught the first time, then it had to come from Abotech and David Smith.
I could be wrong. But nothing else makes sense.
Follow-up: Was Brazeau involved with Crupi before Crupi lost his signing authority? It seems not. Where were those earlier contracts, signed by Crupi going to David Smith and Abotech? If so, did Smith suggest to Crupi to use Smith's cousin Brazeau after Crupi lost his ability to direct contracts? It's plausible, but we don't know yet how this all played out.
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Comments
The opportunity was there. The lack of moral fiber.
Blind greed. Who knows?
It could simply be plain old Liberal corruption creep, the way business was done Liberal style for decades.
Chretien/Shawinigate comes to mind. Take care of your friends, boot out the honest Broker.
If we have an informed electorate the Liberals should not be in contention to lead the Country for a very long time if there's any interest in cleaning things up.
Posted by: Libby at April 25, 2007 07:51 AM
...welcome to Canuckistan...
Posted by: tomax7 at April 25, 2007 09:45 AM
Steve, Did Abotech donate to the Liberal Party over those same years? This could all be another Adscam in the making.
Posted by: Rob at April 25, 2007 11:27 AM
There's blood in the water and you can taste. Keep at 'em Steve, this is gonna explode.
Posted by: northbaytrapper at April 25, 2007 12:23 PM
Congratulations Steve on your thorough investigation of the corruption & lack of ethics endemic in the Liberal Party for so many years. I remember when you unearthed the Brazeau/Smith link over a year ago, reported what you discovered and exposed the stinking mess. The MSM did their best to avoid exposing the scam, but you stuck to the story like a blood-hound, and we see that the corrupt party of entitlement were incredibly more complicit in illegal activity than we will ever know.
If it hadn't been for your 'nose', none of this would ever have been revealed. Another crime the lieberals would have swept under the carpet. How in hell can anyone vote for these scumbags???
Posted by: Alienated at April 25, 2007 12:36 PM
Canadian civil service was thoroughly corrupted by the past Liberal regimes. There was so much tax money collected that several hundrends of million$$$ could be easily misappropritated and not even noticed. Governement was swimming in money and the temptation was just too great to resist.
Gagliano, Guite, Brazeau, Crupi ... get the picture, paisan ..??!!!
Posted by: Pizzed at April 25, 2007 12:43 PM
If nothing else makes sense you are probably right,
give them a chance to come up with a better story my guess is they will not.
Posted by: DrWright at April 25, 2007 03:57 PM
"Canadian civil service was thoroughly corrupted by the past Liberal regimes"
...what is sad is they are still in power, still operating, and still screwing the common Joe Canadian out of his hard earned money.
Wasn't just the Liberals, Alberta had its share with closet Liberals, err, I mean Ralph Klein's PC's.
Posted by: tomax7 at April 25, 2007 04:09 PM
Yeh, how can anyone vote for these scumbags is right.
There is a Decima poll out today that is typical of Decima. They have Dion and the Libranos at 29% and the Conservatives at 30%.
This is all the buzz of the Hacks in the media, they love it.
I suspect the pollsters are playing games to prevent an election. Everyone wants the summer free.
The Opposition have banded together in attacking our Defense Minister O'Connor. Alexa McDonough was outstandingly vile and insulting today in a committee meeting with O'Connor and CDS Hillier. Her crass ignorance with O'Connor was shameful.
THAT IS ONE OLD BITCH WHO'S LONG PAST HER BEST BY DATE.
Posted by: Libby at April 25, 2007 05:40 PM
Wasn't just the Liberals, Alberta had its share with closet Liberals, err, I mean Ralph Klein's PC's.
Indeed. I hate to give the bad news to all you fresh and enthusiastic young Tories, but Ottawa has been a cesspool of waste, bribes and kickbacks year in and year out, decade after decade, no matter which party is charge. The corruption increases with the size of the budget, the number of bureaucrats, and the number of different ways of taxing and redistributing cash. No governing party has shown any interest in fixing this problem because as soon as they come with sniffing distance of the power, they start to lust after all the cash they can score by milking the status quo.
Anyone who thinks this is a "Liberal" problem and not a "government" problem is an idiot.
Posted by: at April 25, 2007 07:59 PM
Is this the same Crupi that worked for CARE Canada but was fired for irregularities with the finances?????
Posted by: Fiumara at April 27, 2007 04:00 PM
 
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