The RCMP needs an ombudsman so that officers can freely complain against senior executives, the RCMP's former ethics and integrity officer says.

"The RCMP has had issues around abuse of power and authority. It's had issues around harassment," retired assistant commissioner John Spice testified Monday before a parliamentary committee investigating allegations of mismanagement of RCMP pension funds.

"I've dealt with many of those [issues] in my 21 months as ethics advisor."

Spice said that at times, officers would pace back and forth outside his office door, then duck in to report their concerns once the coast was clear.

To ensure accountability, he urged the committee to pursue the idea of having an independent person to deal specifically with complaints of abuse of power and authority as well as harassment from higher-ranking managers.

He said during his two years as integrity officer, several people complained about Dominic Crupi, former director of the RCMP's national compensation policy centre.

'The man was a tyrant'

"There's something the matter with the individuals that are put in positions of power, like Mr. Crupi," he said, adding later, "How did no one ever recognize the man was a tyrant?"

While he took his concerns about Crupi and another former manager, Jim Ewanowich, to former RCMP commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli, he said neither of them was formally disciplined. And when an audit revealed billing irregularities with the Mounties' pension and insurance fund in 2002, both Crupi and Ewanowich left the force without being punished.

No one was held accountable, Spice said: "I spoke to the commissioner, I spoke to the deputy commissioners, I spoke to — God, I spoke to everybody I could speak to about the behaviour."

Instead, whistleblowers who tried to report wrongdoing told the parliamentary committee they were disciplined by top officials and their investigations into the matter were stonewalled.

Spice, who retired in 2003, also recommended to the committee that the government should amend the RCMP Act, which gives a one-year window to discipline employees. He said those found guilty of wrongdoing should be punished even after that time limit has expired.

Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj, who is on the parliamentary committee, said the pension funds mess underscores the need for "some sort of oversight, whether it's a body, [or] a civilian body that functions in that role" in the RCMP. He said he will be recommending the creation of such an independent body to the committee.