C-120 - Conduct Authority Decision

This appeal concerns five allegations brought against the Respondent in relation to a personal conflict with his former spouse. When his former spouse denied and/or ignored the Respondent’s requests to decrease the support payments for their son, the Respondent refused to sign a letter of consent for their son to travel abroad for four consecutive weeks. To make sure his ex-wife and son could not leave the country, the Respondent sent an email to RCMP partner agencies. The email identified the Respondent as an RCMP member and advised that his former spouse had not [translation] “sorted out” her child custody situation and that the child did not have both parents’ authorization to leave the country. After a conduct hearing, the Conduct Board found that two of the five allegations were established and imposed a financial penalty of 40 days of pay as well as an ineligibility for promotion for a period of two years.

This file includes two appeals that were consolidated by a final adjudicator. Specifically, the Conduct Authority (Appellant/Counter-Respondent) is challenging the conduct measures imposed by the Conduct Board: he is asking for the member to be dismissed. Whereas in his counter-appeal, the Respondent/Counter-Appellant challenges the findings on the allegations and the measures imposed: he is asking for the allegations to be dismissed and, if not, for the conduct measures to be lessened.

The ERC found that the Respondent’s counter-appeal should be dismissed. The Conduct Board did not err in finding that it was not bound by the Conduct Measures Guide, which in fact constitutes guidelines. The Conduct Board did not err in imposing an important financial penalty even though the allegations were not criminal in nature. On the other hand, the ERC found that the Conduct Authority’s appeal should be allowed because the Conduct Board made clearly unreasonable errors in assessing certain aggravating and mitigating factors. 

The ERC recommends allowing the Conduct Authority’s appeal and recommends that the Respondent be dismissed. The ERC also recommends dismissing the Respondent’s counter-appeal.