D-132 - Adjudication Board Decision

This appeal related to an incident that occurred on March 11, 2010. The Appellant left his place of work in an unmarked police vehicle. Several pieces of equipment belonging to the RCMP were in the vehicle. While the Appellant was making a stop at a shopping centre, the equipment was stolen from the vehicle. The veracity of the information contained in the statements and the reports provided by the Appellant to his supervisor were called into question. It was only on March 15, 2010, that the Appellant mentioned, in two reports and in a discussion with his supervisor, the stop at the shopping centre under the pretext of going to the bathroom (without stating that he had made purchases). The Appellant was the subject of an allegation of disgraceful or disorderly conduct bringing the RCMP into disrepute in contravention of section 39(1) of the Code of Conduct. During the disciplinary hearing before the Adjudication Board, the parties agreed, in light of the details of the allegation, that the Respondent must meet the greater burden of proof in section 45 of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Regulations, 1988 (1988 Regulations) to prove the member's intent to make one or more false, misleading or inaccurate statements. The Adjudication Board then found that the allegation was substantiated. Following the sanction hearing, the Adjudication Board imposed on the Appellant a sanction consisting of a reprimand and forfeiture of five days' pay.

The ERC found that the wording of section 45 of the 1988 Regulations requires that the misleading or inaccurate statement be made wilfully and that the author knew (“knowingly”) that it was misleading, false or inaccurate. The ERC found that the Adjudication Board did not commit a palpable or overriding error by finding that the Appellant had acted knowingly and wilfully when he neglected to tell his supervisor everything regarding his stop at the shopping centre on March 11, 2010, and that his failure to do so until March 15, 2010, was a false and inaccurate statement to a superior officer within the meaning of section 45 of the 1988 Regulations.

The ERC also found that a member's neglect to provide relevant information in a statement or report under section 45 of the 1988 Regulations, which makes the statement or report false, misleading or inaccurate, is clearly within the parameters of section 45.

The ERC found that the Adjudication Board had properly considered the reports written by the Appellant and submitted to his supervisor in relation to the other evidence presented by the Appropriate Officer and drew reasonable conclusions regarding the fact that the Appellant had voluntarily neglected to state that he had made purchases at the shopping centre and the impact of this important omission on the sequence of events of March 11, 2010.

The ERC recommended that the appeal be denied.

The Commissioner's decision, as summarized by his office, is as follows:

[TRANSLATION]

The Appellant appealed a decision of the Adjudication Board imposing on him a sanction consisting of a reprimand and forfeiture of five days' pay for having contravened subsection 39(1) of the RCMP Regulations by neglecting to inform his superior that on March 11, 2010, the day RCMP equipment was stolen from an unmarked police vehicle the Appellant was using, he had stopped at Costco with that vehicle to make some personal purchases.

The Appellant raised several errors of fact and law in the decision of the Adjudication Board, which had found that the allegation of disgraceful conduct had been established by the fact that the Appellant had wilfully made a false, misleading or inaccurate statement or report to his superior regarding the theft of the equipment.

The Commissioner accepted the findings and recommendations of the ERC. The Appellant did not satisfy the Commissioner that the Adjudication Board made a manifest and determinative error. The appeal is dismissed.