Military Police Complaints Commission s4
Military Police Complaints Commission
FYNES PUBLIC INTEREST HEARINGS
held pursuant to section 250.38(1) of the National Defence
Act, in the matter of file 2011004
LES AUDIENCES D'INTÉRÊT PUBLIQUE SUR FYNES
tenues en vertu du paragraphe 250.38(1) de la Loi sur la
défense nationale pour le dossier 2011004
TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS
held at 270 Albert St., Ottawa, Ontario
on Tuesday, April 10, 2012
mardi, le 10 avril 2012
VOLUME 7
BEFORE:
Mr. Glenn Stannard Chairperson
Ms. Raymonde Cléroux Registrar
APPEARANCES:
Mr. Mark Freiman Commission counsel
Ms. Dana Cernacek
Ms. Genevieve Coutlée
Mr. Rob Fairchild
Ms. Beth Alexander
Ms Elizabeth Richards For Sgt Jon Bigelow, MWO Ross Tourout,
Ms Korinda McLaine LCol Gilles Sansterre, WO Blair Hart, PO 2 Eric McLaughlin,
Sgt David Mitchell, Sgt Matthew Alan Ritco, Maj Daniel Dandurand,
Sgt Scott Shannon, LCol Brian Frei, LCol (ret=d) William H. Garrick
WO (ret=d) Sean Der Bonneteau, CWO (ret=d) Barry Watson
Col (ret=d) Michel W. Drapeau For Mr. Shaun Fynes
Mr. Joshua Juneau and Mrs. Sheila Fynes
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(ii)
INDEX
PAGE
AFFIRMED: ERIN BOWDEN 22
ExaminationInChief by Ms. Coutlée 22
CrossExamination by Colonel Drapeau 50
ReExamination by Ms. Coutlée 58
AFFIRMED: CRAIG VOLSTAD 59
ExaminationInChief by Mr. Freiman 60
Continued ExaminationInChief by Mr. Freiman 124
CrossExamination by Colonel Drapeau 168
SWORN: WARRANT OFFICER HISCOCK 174
ExaminationInChief by Ms. Cernacek 178
(iii)
LIST OF EXHIBITS
NO. DESCRIPTION PAGE
P19 Witness book index for Sergeant Bowden. 1
P20 Witness book index for Major Volstad. 1
P21 Witness book index for Warrant Officer Hiscock. 1
P22 Documents pertaining to Corporal Langridge=s PLQ course
in March 2007. 2
P23 Checklist, life event affecting pension annuity, pay allowances,
benefits or expenses. 3
P24 Operational Readiness Verification and Departure Assistance
Group. 3
P25 Commonlaw partnership application. 3
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Ottawa, Ontario
Upon resuming on Tuesday, April 10, 2012
at 10:08 a.m.
THE CHAIRPERSON: Good morning.
MS. COUTLÉE: Good morning, Mr. Chairman. We are going to begin by entering exhibits. We have the witness book index for Sergeant Bowden.
THE REGISTRAR: P19.
EXHIBIT NO. P19: Witness book index for Sergeant Bowden.
MS. COUTLÉE: Witness book index for Major Volstad.
THE REGISTRAR: P20.
EXHIBIT NO. P20: Witness book index for Major Volstad.
MS. COUTLÉE: Witness book index for Warrant Officer Hiscock.
THE REGISTRAR: P21.
EXHIBIT NO. P21: Witness book index for Warrant Officer Hiscock.
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MS. COUTLÉE: We also have a new document to enter, documents pertaining to Corporal Langridge's PLQ course in March 2007.
THE REGISTRAR: P22.
EXHIBIT NO. P22: Documents pertaining to Corporal Langridge's PLQ course in March 2007.
MS. COUTLÉE: As an explanation to you and the parties about this document, this is a package of documents, at least one of which was identified to be very important, and this package was received by the Commission on Thursday afternoon.
We were advised that it was compiled by Warrant Hiscock in anticipation for his testimony today, and we have identified that some of the documents included are also relevant to the testimony of Major Volstad.
We provided disclosure to the parties by email on Thursday as soon as it was possible to do so.
We have also received three new documents this morning that are relevant to the testimony of Major Volstad. The three documents are checklist, life event affecting pension annuity, pay allowances, benefits or expenses.
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THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit P23.
EXHIBIT NO. P23: Checklist, life event affecting pension annuity, pay allowances, benefits or expenses.
MS. COUTLÉE: Operational Readiness Verification and Departure Assistance Group.
THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit P24.
EXHIBIT NO. P24: Operational Readiness Verification and Departure Assistance Group.
MS. COUTLÉE: And commonlaw partnership application.
THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit P25.
EXHIBIT NO. P25: Commonlaw partnership application.
MS. COUTLÉE: As for these three documents, Mr. Chairman, these were included in documents that have been compiled by Major Volstad for his interview with Commission counsel in late January, early February.
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These documents were requested at the time of the interview. They had, however, to be provided by Department of Justice counsel representing the witness to Department of Justice counsel in charge of redactions prior to being provided to the Commission.
The packages were only provided to the Commission at one or two weeks prior to the start of these hearings, and it was at that time that it was discovered that some documents were missing. Those documents were requested last week, and it is only this morning that these three documents were received, these documents that were in the possession of the witness at the time of the interview.
THE CHAIRPERSON: The interview was in January?
MS. COUTLÉE: I don't have the exact date of the interview. I believe it took place in the last week of January, first week of February, so between January 30 and February 3.
MR. FREIMAN: Since I conducted the interview, Mr. Chairman, I believe it was the first interview I conducted. It would have been on the 30th.
THE CHAIRPERSON: Of January?
MR. FREIMAN: Yes.
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COL (RET'D) DRAPEAU: Mr. Chair, a comment, if I may.
THE CHAIRPERSON: Yes, go ahead.
COL (RET'D) DRAPEAU: It is bad enough that we have given I speak for the complainants the minimal amount of time to prepare for these hearings to be receiving these documents not at the 11th hour, but it is really the 11th hour and 50 minutes, and what I am surprised by this is new information. These are pro forma. They are blank forms.
THE CHAIRPERSON: Sorry. They are which forms?
COL (RET'D) DRAPEAU: They are blank forms. There is nothing to be redacted from it. This last minute does not help us. It does not help us in the preparation for the hearing itself, and I for one want to bring to your attention the impact this has when we are presented as we walk in at the hearing with additional exhibits. It could be that on occasion this may happen, but let's not have this as the norm.
THE CHAIRPERSON: Are you referring to these forms here, the blank forms?
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COL (RET'D) DRAPEAU: Which we received this morning. Surely there was no redaction required. I have already written to the Commission last week or over the weekend about a number of redactions in a number of documents that I am very concerned about, because, as I said in a letter that I sent to the Commission, copied to my friend, we have taken the position which has been explained and certainly talked about in the opening comments.
We have gone as far as we could go. We haven't held anything back. We want this Commission to get to the bottom of it. We want it to have all the facts. We are on one side of the fence, and when I see the amount of redaction that is taking place for instance, email traffic between various Canadian Forces officials about an article written by Mr. Pugliese in the Ottawa Citizen.
I had a question myself. I said, "What are we redacting here? It should be part of the public records." I really mean the general public. I see that, and I see in records of witnesses we are going to see over the next couple of days entire pages and entire documents that are totally redacted.
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Of course, I have to raise an application: What are we missing here? And why is it and when is it that we are going to get disclosure? Not partial disclosure but full disclosure.
THE CHAIRPERSON: Who will be speaking today?
MS. RICHARDS: I will speak to this issue.
THE CHAIRPERSON: I have two issues. The first one I want to touch on is the timeliness of the documents, and if you can help me as to documents, I take it when did you first see these documents?
MS. RICHARDS: I first saw these documents yesterday, so I haven't seen them before either. What I can tell you, Mr. Chairperson, is that the team for the Government of Canada has been working very hard to comply with the various requests for documents and to attend prehearing interviews that have been requested.
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It is certainly not the intention or the desire of our team to provide these lastminute, and as Colonel Drapeau has said, it may be the exception. I would say to you that I think this is the exception. The team will continue to work very hard to provide these in as timely a manner as possible.
THE CHAIRPERSON: You first saw them yesterday, but my understanding is I saw some documents some time ago that you kind of coordinate the whether during the interviews and everything else, you kind of coordinate on behalf of several people.
MS. RICHARDS: I am certainly the lead counsel for this team. However, as I have advised your counsel, we are a large team divided over a number of departments, so responsibility has been divided among the team to be able to meet the demands and requests for this hearing.
There are counsel who are responsible for production of the documents, and they don't show me the documents before they are produced, in the normal course.
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THE CHAIRPERSON: To ensure that this is the exception of the rule, what can we do to ensure we have a long way to go yet. What can we do to make sure that documents come in a more timely fashion and we don't get documents the day before, both for Commission counsel and for Colonel Drapeau and yourself?
MS. RICHARDS: Certainly. I am in the same position. As I say, I don't think there was any intention to provide these at the last minute. I will certainly follow up with the team. We are well aware of the requirement to produce things in as timely a manner as possible, and all I can tell you is that everybody is absolutely making their best efforts.
I understand that there are only a couple of documentary requests outstanding. What I would say about these is that I think that these came at a time when there was a great push to get everything to the Commission as quickly as possible, and I suspect these may have become lost in the shuffle. Not that that is an excuse, but we will certainly follow up and make sure it doesn't happen again.
I have spoken to the team about what is left, and I will definitely follow up and make sure that those are provided to the Commission as quickly as possible.
THE CHAIRPERSON: I will take your word at that. Hopefully we can move on to the documents.
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The second question is: Colonel Drapeau has just raised an issue on redactions. Whether it is dealt with today you said some other documents, so is this an issue that is going to get raised later on or do you want to deal with it now?
COL (RET'D) DRAPEAU: I can deal with it now in a preliminary fashion. It raised a question. When we are examining witnesses and we have documents that are presented as evidence and some of it is redacted, then it begs the question whether or not we are having the full story, a full ability to crossexamine witnesses, and it raises the possibility that we may have to recall some of the witnesses when we do the redactions removed.
The fact of the matter is that as we are looking at documents now, and we are into the second week of hearings, I am perplexed by the amount of redactions taking place. As I look ahead, I really don't understand why this hasn't been addressed, and I don't know if and when it will be addressed.
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I will probably present you with something over the course of the next few days to address that very issue. I think direction has to be given, and if there are to be redactions, it has to be certainly with you have to be aware of it, and you have to ultimately decide as to the appropriateness of redacting some information over the others.
There will be some to protect the personal information of some witnesses. I don't have a quarrel with that. When we have full pages of, say, an analysis of the Board of Inquiry by an intermediate headquarters and all of it is blacked out, that information I need to have.
When there is significant email traffic over the media lines has been prepared to answer some of the allegations by Mr. and Mrs. Fynes, which are the same allegations we are looking at at the moment, obviously the Department and many of the officials have taken positions, have articulated a message, have arrived at a corporate position. Some of it is redacted.
I see no reason as to why that information will be excluded from our review. There is a time allocation to it. Time factors, I should say, and the sooner the better.
THE CHAIRPERSON: Go ahead.
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