James Bagnall – February 9, 2008
Ottawa actuary Sylvain Parent never saw it coming. In the late 1990s, he invoked a legal tax rule, but senior bureaucrats didn't like the way he did it. First Treasury Board, then the Canada Revenue Agency, waged a war of attrition that damaged Parent personally and nearly destroyed his business.
For Parent, the darkest hours came just before Christmas 2001 when the RCMP laid fraud charges. It would be two long years before the Crown acknowledged the weakness of its case. It withdrew all charges before any sworn testimony was heard.
Government officials have since been accused of having broken laws during their fight with Parent. Andre Boudreau, a retiree who used to run the pension plan at the Department of National Defence, and his wife, Suzanne, a former Department of Justice lawyer, have laid a complaint with the RCMP, alleging that Treasury Board and Canada Revenue Agency officials committed fraud, breached a court order and libelled former civil servants. The police have moved carefully. Although the complaint was laid in 2006, the allegations are unproved and no charges have been laid.
In the meantime, the Canada Revenue Agency has been relentless in its efforts to punish those who joined Parent's pension plans. The agency has put into limbo the pensions of nearly 200 former government employees -- many of whom Parent advised.
But Parent and his clients have fought back. During a civil trial that wrapped up in January, the actions of civil servants who tried to crush Parent finally came to light.
Parent and the others are now awaiting a ruling from an Ontario superior court judge.
Associate business editor James Bagnall reports on a remarkable legal saga and what it tells us about the unchecked exercise of bureaucratic power.
On Jan. 11, Sylvain Parent took his usual seat near the front of courtroom 31 in downtown Ottawa. As with most days during this proceeding, the financial consultant had commuted from Thurso, the small Quebec town where he was born and continues to call home. With a burly physique, close-cropped hair and serious demeanour, Parent can be intimidating. But not on this day. His hands moved constantly, almost obsessively, between his desk and face.
This was the culmination of a three-month trial in which Parent and eight former civil servants he advised, accused top government officials of negligent misrepresentation in the negotiation of pension transfers to the private sector. It's the latest in a series of legal battles stretching over six years, but it's the first time Parent's antagonists have been questioned in open court.
