THE WEST BLOCK
Episode 4, Season 2
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Host: Tom Clark
Guests: Barbara George, Thomas Hall, Bob, Rae, John Norris
Location: Ottawa
Tom Clark:
Welcome to The West Block, on this Sunday, September the 30th; from Ottawa, I’m Tom Clark.
Well coming up on today’s show, a Global News exclusive. The former deputy commissioner of the RCMP fights back. Barbara George was found in contempt of Parliament but later she was exonerated by a police investigation. She speaks out for the first time this morning.
We’ll also hear from one of the foremost parliamentary experts who says that what happened to her is a disgrace.
And Guantanamo’s youngest inmate is back in Canada. What is next in the Omar Khadr saga?
Well it’s rare that a Member of Parliament, even a former one issues a public apology but it happened last week. Former Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj issued a statement that said in part, “I now acknowledge that RCMP Deputy Commissioner Barbara George did not perjure herself. I offer to her and her family my heartfelt apologies”.
So what’s this all about? Well back in 2007, Wrzesnewskyj led the charge against Barbara George at a committee hearing but MP’s from all parties joined in and by the time they had finished her life lay in ruins. How did it all happen? Well here now is your weekly West Block Primer:
The story starts at the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament in February of 2007. That’s when Barbara George was called to testify about the alleged mismanagement of the RCMP pension fund. Asked whether she had interfered in the investigation into the fund, she said no. But as the committee proceeded into March, Wrzesnewskyj at the time a Liberal MP on the committee accused her of lying.
Borys Wrzesnewskyj:
“Chair, I’m very concerned that Deputy Commissioner Barb George has perjured herself”.
Tom Clark:
That accusation got her suspended from her job by the commissioner of the RCMP with virtually no investigation. But eight months later, the Mounties took a closer look and found that in fact she had done no wrong, so George was reinstated. She had her job back but the Public Accounts Committee continued its work. In December she tried clearing her name one last time but to no avail. On April 10, 2008, Barbara George’s life was destroyed. With no debate, MP’s found her to be in contempt of Parliament.
Shawn Murphy:
“Let the House of Commons find Barbara George in contempt of Parliament for providing false misleading testimony to the House of Commons Standing Committee in Public Accounts on February 21st, 2007”.
Speaker:
Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?
All agreed.
Speaker:
Agreed? Carried.
Tom Clark:
Her reputation in tatters, she was forced to resign. Ironically one year later, another police investigation completely cleared her name.
And joining me now from her home in Trinity, Newfoundland is Barbara George. Ms. George, welcome to The West Block. Good to have you here.
Let me deal with the big question right off the bat, did you, in 2007, or at any time, lie to or mislead the public accounts committee here in Ottawa?
Barbara George:
I did not, categorically, absolutely I did not. I spoke the truth.
Tom Clark:
And you said that at the time and yet you were unable to defend yourself.
Barbara George:
Well, as you would know, in a committee setting like that, there certainly is no legal defence; there is no cross-examination of witnesses. We are asked questions, all the witnesses are asked questions and the committee decides whom to believe.
Tom Clark:
And they clearly didn’t believe you because there were others testifying in front of that committee whose testimonies seem to suggest in fact that you were lying and so they believe them and not you. Is that essentially it?
Barbara George:
Well now Tom they didn’t only not believe me, they did not believe several others who spoke as I did and said she had nothing to do with this investigation whatsoever. She had nothing to do with any supposed removal of any individual because I simply couldn’t have had the influence; there was no reason to. By the way, as I think if you would look at the records, you would see that the investigation done by the Ottawa Police had terminated, I think two days before I had ever even spoken to the individual or anybody concerning the harassment…the alleged harassment that was my issue with him.
Tom Clark:
Okay, let’s move on then, from that time that you testified in early 2007, and one of the members of that committee, a Liberal, accused you of perjury and yet there had been no investigation of this. And yet your own force, the RCMP suspended you only to reinstate you eight months later when they said there was no cause to suspend you. So for that eight month period, it seemed that your own force turned on you.
Barbara George:
I won’t argue with that Tom. I won’t argue with that at all. I think that we have to look at the political situation of the day. This was a minority government. All parties were scrambling for airtime and for some notoriety. My organization of course reports through to the government and we had an interim leader at the time who was probably scrambling to do everything she could not to upset the government and matters further. But as we know, I became a pariah in that time and basically guiltless though I was, I simply became too hot to handle for the organization.
Tom Clark:
Well you in fact became collateral damage in order for the RCMP to protect their own reputation.
Barbara George:
Well it seemed to appease certain entities within the government, the fact that I was on suspension and then that I was forced to take early retirement.
Tom Clark:
Well before we get to that point, I want to sort of keep on the chronological course here because you were reinstated in November of 2007, after the RCMP basically said oops, sorry, we really didn’t have any basis to suspend you in the first place so now you’re back on the force, deputy commissioner. Then, some six months later, in April of the following year, the committee comes back to the House of Commons and sites you for contempt of Parliament. How did you feel then?
Barbara George:
Well that was probably the final straw. Certainly my career, even though I had been brought back to the RCMP was in tatters. I truly had no portfolio while I was back working. I was simply putting in time. I was a non-entity within the organization at headquarters. So when the citation for contempt came out, I think that that spelled the end of days for me and I was invited to retire.
Tom Clark:
Well wait a minute, the RCMP had already figured out they had no grounds to suspend you in the first place, did they not try to defend you in the light of the citation of contempt?
Barbara George:
Tom, as I said before, our organization is heavily connected, maybe too heavily connected politically. It has many masters to serve and I again, I was a pariah. There was nobody going to draw focus to himself or herself to stand up in my defence.
Tom Clark:
So in fact, they went the other way and basically told you, you gotta get out.
Barbara George:
Well, from all perspectives, I was, as I said, I had no credibility. My integrity had been questioned. I had been called a perjurer, as one can imagine for a 30 year veteran of any police service, whether I was a constable or a deputy commissioner, that is the end of the career. Once your reputation and your credibility are shorn to bits, there’s nothing left for you to do as a uniform police officer.
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Tom Clark:
And obviously no prospects for future employment I would imagine after that.
Barbara George:
Tom, I often joke that I could not have gained employment at any level of work.
Tom Clark:
Let me take you through the last sort of acts of this rather pathetic play. In the following year, in 2009, the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) concluded an investigation that completely clears you of any charges of perjury, or lying, or misleading, or anything. Now at that point, when you were cleared by that investigation did any Member of Parliament who had voted to find you in contempt of Parliament have the decency to give you a phone call or write you a letter?
Barbara George:
The silence was deafening Tom.
Tom Clark:
Not one?
Barbara
Not one.
Tom Clark:
And during this time, you’ve moved back to Newfoundland with your husband. As you say, your career in tatters, no future employment prospects to go on and nobody, either in Parliament or at the senior branch of the RCMP even said sorry.
Barbara George:
I have been languishing in no-man’s land for the past five and a half years and I’m not alone with my anguish. My husband, my three sons have suffered along with me. This has been… I can only put it to the equivalent of travelling through the nine circles of hell. It’s been a very, very difficult, difficult journey. And ironically enough, again I always look back at them and I say, you know, it’s just as well it was me that was given this burden because I have love and I have support. I can’t imagine what would have happened to another individual who had gone home that evening to an empty house.
Tom Clark:
Barbara, at this stage, what would justice look like for you? What do you want?
Barbara George:
I want what I’ve always wanted. I want my name cleared. I want the public record cleared. I want…I’m hoping…I’m absolutely fervently hoping that our parliamentarians of today will see fit to rescind the citation of contempt against me.
Tom Clark:
And that hasn’t happened yet. One Member of Parliament has in fact apologized and completely retracted his statement. That was the Liberal MP who initially accused you of perjury. Is that enough?
Barbara George:
No that’s not enough. That is simply the beginning. This former MP had the humility and the courage to come forward and to apologize. That’s a good beginning but it is only the beginning. What I really need now is for parliamentarians to review my situation, to have the courage and the humility to admit that a mistake was made and let’s face it, this is a new Parliament. This happened to me almost six years ago so there is some distance and time for the parliamentarians but not for me Tom. I’m locked in this time warp. I am where I was when I watched Parliament issue the citation of contempt against me. I can’t move forward and I need, I absolutely need to have this rescinded before we can go on with our lives completely.
Tom Clark:
And return to you, the unblemished record that you had in the force for 30 years before this started.
Barbara George:
Tom, make no mistake about it, I was one of the proudest members of the RCMP. I was one of the most grateful members of the RCMP to have been given the opportunity to work as a deputy commissioner of human resources. Every day that I went into work, I absolutely loved my job. I loved my team around me and I can tell you that my team and I, we did good things for this organization.
Tom Clark:
Barbara George, to say that this is anything other than outrage would be to understate the matter but I thank you very much for your time this morning. Thank you.
Barbara George:
I appreciate it Tom.
Tom Clark:
Well coming up on The West Block, how did Barbara George’s case spiral out of control and could this happen to you? Stay with us.
Break
Tom Clark:
Welcome back. So how did this happen to Barbara George? Well to answer that we need to look at the committee system on the Hill itself. Now in her case, it was the public accounts committee which was supposed to be examining the auditor general’s report. What they looked at though went way beyond that mandate, with very few resources and no investigative expertise at all, the committee nonetheless passed judgement on George; something that a 30 year veteran of parliamentary committees says should never have happened.
And joining me now is Thomas Hall, the former Clerk of Procedure and House Affairs. Mr. Hall, welcome to The West Block. Good to have you here.
Thomas Hall:
Thank you.
Tom Clark:
You’ve studied this case extensively.
Thomas Hall:
Yes.
Tom Clark:
Was Barbara George railroaded by this committee?
Thomas Hall:
She was run over with a bulldozer in a sense, yes, but the committee wasn’t aiming to be malicious. They got carried away in a way and got confused with their own procedures.
Tom Clark:
But Barbara George said in the interview that was just on that she felt that she was in a position where she had no recourse. There was no due process. She couldn’t consult a lawyer. She couldn’t fight back.
Thomas Hall:
The procedures used by the committee are inquisitional rather than adversarial. So when lawyers appear before the committee with a witness they are not allowed to speak or to defend their client and they are horrified by this. The procedure is totally antiquated.
Tom Clark:
But what you’re saying though is that the committee has the right to do what it did.
Thomas Hall:
Yes.
Tom Clark:
But the outcome is probably not what the committees were intended for in the first place.
Thomas Hall:
Exactly right and they had the right to proceed the way they did except that they had gone beyond their own mandate and that’s occurring more and more frequently unfortunately.
Tom Clark:
Because in this case, the committee was to study the question of the movement of money between the pension fund, and the insurance fund, and the RCMP and they ended up delving into matters of who was investigating it and whether somebody was removed from the investigation. Once you start down that path as a committee, what are the consequences of going beyond your mandate?
Thomas Hall:
The consequences on people you’re calling in as witnesses can be quite serious as in the case of Barbara George. The consequences for the committee are almost non-existent. If they make a report to the House, somebody might raise a question…a point of order rather and the Speaker might rule the report out of order but that’s the only consequence to committee.
Tom Clark:
So if this is an abusive power in the larger sense because they strayed outside of their mandate, what could be done to stop this from happening again?
Thomas Hall:
They’re going to have to do something themselves. Nobody from outside can impose a solution on them. They will have to change the way they proceed and the way they conduct themselves with outside witnesses.
Tom Clark:
Talk to me a little bit about what many people saw as the toxic nature of committees on Parliament Hill because especially back then, it was a minority government situation. It seemed as if all parties were using committees to score yet another quick political point. And I guess Barbara George ends up as collateral damage to the heated politics of the day.
Thomas Hall:
Yes, exactly and this has been occurring quite frequently during that period. The committees we use as the battleground and if you were called as a witness you might be a civilian on the field of battle with no protection whatsoever.
Tom Clark:
And this may seem like an obvious question but if it could happen to Barbara George, could this sort of thing happen to any Canadian who ends up in front of a parliamentary committee?
Thomas Hall:
Yes, unfortunately it could and in fact, there have been other instances of Canadians who appeared before parliamentary committee improperly when the committee’s gone outside its mandate. Adam Carroll was one. Brian Mulroney is another.
Tom Clark:
And you say that similarly the committee system did them an injustice?
Thomas Hall:
Yes it did.
Tom Clark:
You said that the change has to come from within.
Thomas Hall:
Yes.
Tom Clark:
How in your experience does that happen? Is it a matter of shaming parliamentarians pointing out stuff like this that say, you know you shouldn’t have done this back then so fix it now, or is there another way of doing this? What’s your guess?
Thomas Hall:
Publicity like this can help because the parliamentarians will become aware of the fact there’s a problem. I think one of the issues right now is that they don’t realize there’s a problem. They are convinced right now on the surface that Barbara George did do what the committee said she did and that she was guilty and it’s over and done with. Now that it’s coming out that there were things that the committee didn’t consider and that they weren’t aware of at the time, they can revisit the problem and maybe find solutions for the future.
Tom Clark:
That’s what I want to ask you about next because she protested her innocence. The RCMP reinstated her because they found that she had done no wrong. In 2009, the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) conducted an investigation; said, no she didn’t do anything wrong, she was just fine but by that point her life had been destroyed by the Parliament of Canada. What should happen now, do you think that the Parliament of Canada owes an apology to Barbara George? Can they rescind this citation of contempt? What should happen?
Thomas Hall:
They should…that should be what they should do. The House of Commons should adopt a resolution to rescind the original finding of contempt, to remove that stain from her and to apologize to her and her family for the damage caused. That would be the first step for her. Second step is to revise their own procedures so that this is very unlikely to occur to someone else who is innocent in the future.
Tom Clark:
Thomas Hall, I really appreciate you bringing your experience to bear on this situation. Thank you so much.
Thomas Hall:
You’re welcome.
Tom Clark:
Well we wondered if any current MP who was on that committee at the time wanted to set things right the way that Borys Wrzesnewskyj did. Well not one of them would talk. We asked all three major parties to come on this show. The NDP refused. The Conservatives issued this from their chief government whip, Gordon O’Connor. It says, “This is a matter between Mr. Borys Wrzesnewskyj and Ms. George. We have no comment on how the former MP for Etobicoke Centre decides to handle his legal battles”. Well the Liberals; however, were the only party that agreed to come on the show and talk about it. So Bob Rae is coming up next. Stay tuned.
We will also ask him about Omar Khadr’s return to Canada. Stay with us.
Break
Tom Clark:
Yesterday morning Omar Khadr arrived in Canada ending his decade long imprisonment at Guantanamo Bay. Khadr is now in a Canadian penitentiary but perhaps not for long because he may be eligible for parole as early as next summer. The debate over his case however still rages on and to discuss this and other matters, I’m joined by interim Liberal Leader, Bob Rae. Mr. Rae thanks very much for being here.
Bob Rae:
Good to be with you Tom.
Tom Clark:
Let’s just deal with those other matters first. We heard the story of Barbara George. She is asking parliamentarians to stand up and pass a new motion in the House, essentially rescinding this contempt that she was cited with, now that a police investigation has completely cleared her of any wrongdoing. Will you do that?
Bob Rae:
I think it’s…I certainly think it’s worth…it needs to happen in the sense that we need to discuss this question. Parliament needs to take it up, you know, Parliamentary committees are not courts, and I think this is unanimous committee, unanimous finding of a public accounts committee chaired by a member of the Conservative party at the time. All three parties and all members of all three parties agreed and the report was not really considered by Parliament, it was simply passed. At that time, I wasn’t even a Member of Parliament…of that Parliament. So I do think it’s something that Parliament needs to look at and I think all the other parties need to think about this and certainly from my perspective, we’re looking very hard at what in fact we can do to make sure that in so far as we can correct an injustice, we do the right thing.
Tom Clark:
And in that it was the entire Parliament, in other words the House of Commons, passed the contempt motion, can the Parliament rescind a contempt motion?
Bob Rae:
Well we can’t affect…I mean the censure motion of contempt motion dies with that Parliament and its three Parliaments’ ago but we can as a Parliament this time, simply make a statement saying we…you know, what we feel is the case. The question is how do we go about doing that and you’ve got to look at other members of the committee who are still Members of Parliament who may have some views. But I think we all need to think long and hard to make sure we do the right thing because sometimes you make findings of facts but committees are not really courts they are political committees because they’re part of Parliament. It’s a political body. I think sometimes we make the mistake of thinking that committees are you know…can play some kind of court-like role and it’s really not appropriate for committees to do that.
Tom Clark:
So maybe just an apology from the members might do?
Bob Rae:
Well I think we have to look and see what we can do but from my perspective as somebody who wasn’t there looking at the record; I do think that we have to make sure that we do the right thing for any individual who feels they’ve been wronged.
Tom Clark:
Let’s move on to Omar Khadr – arrived here yesterday. Overall, do you view Omar Khadr as a victim or as a murderer?
Bob Rae:
Well, I mean he did what he did so he was certainly involved in a conflict. He was where he should not have been and he was involved in a direct battle with American soldiers who were fighting on the same side as Canada so from that point of view he’s somebody who was engaged in a battle and has plead guilty to what he plead guilty to. He was recruited as a 12-year-old into a gang of terrorists and fundamentalists extremists. He then went into a camp and then into a guerrilla outfit and then got involved in this kind of conflict. So, when you asked me that question, the answer would be, I guess you’d say, a bit of both in the sense that obviously he did something wrong. He recognizes that he did from all the court statements that he’s made. On the other hand, in any other Canadian court you would take the circumstances of how this happened and say well we’re talking about an adolescent who was recruited at the age of 12 who was brainwashed and then thrown into the field of battle.
Tom Clark:
Are you concerned that when he gets paroled because he will at some point that he won’t just go back into the arms of Al-Qaeda?
Bob Rae:
Well, I think that’s….the real issue is not just the arms of Al-Qaeda, the real issue is he’s been 10 years in Guantanamo solitary confinement, who knows what kinds of deprivation or hardships he’s gone through personally or what kinds of internal…you know psychologically how he’s doing. I think the challenge of rehabilitating him and reintegrating him into Canadian society is a real one and I don’t underestimate it. I mean, I’ve always called for his repatriation to Canada not because I’m in any way condoning what he did, which I think sometimes is the way you know others sort of interpret what you’re saying but because I think all of us need to be concerned that we don’t want this man to live the rest of his life in a completely dysfunctional way. We want him somehow to be rehabilitated.
Tom Clark:
Bob Rae, interim leader of the Liberal Party, thank you very much for being here this morning.
Bob Rae:
Thank you Tom – appreciate it. Thank you.
Well there’s more on this story at thewestblock.ca. There’s a web exclusive interview with Omar Khadr’s lawyer as well.
That is our show for this week but before we go, we want to hear from you. Should Parliament rescind Barbara George’s contempt motion? The ways to reach us are right here on the screen in front of you. Our website, Facebook, Twitter; they all work.
In case you tuned in late, you can also watch full episodes of The West Block by downloading the Global app for your Android or Apple device. Thanks again for tuning in. See you next week. I’m Tom Clark.
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