Strathmore native fights crime world-wide

Times Reporter 

 

Often times one thinks that you have to come from a bustling metropolis in order to make it big in this world. Donovan Fisher proves that’s not the case after recently accepting the role of Staff Sgt. for the Calgary office, overseeing all of Western Canada, of the RCMP’s International Anti-Corruption Unit (IACU). 

Fisher is from Strathmore, having gone to elementary, junior high and high school in the community. He was also president of the first graduating class of the then new Strathmore High School.

“I have wanted to be in the RMCP since I was little, that was really all I ever wanted to do and I think probably as I got older the reasons changed a bit but I guess I have always never liked the fact that people take advantage of other people,” said Fisher. 

“It really boils down to almost the same thing. It is an extension of bullying, feeling that they have the right to take something from somebody else. I guess I would say that was always my core motivation for joining the police.”

Over the years he has dealt with fraud, and white-collar crime. The IACU doesn’t investigate domestic corruptions, meaning ones that happen involving the Canadian government within Canada, but they do investigate and prosecute Canadians involved in corruption with foreign governments. He often is asked to update the Prime Minister’s Office and Foreign Affairs officials on various matters happening around the world.

Canada’s Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act (CFPOA) was enacted in 1999. For the first 10 years there were serious loopholes that made the law hard to enforce, like the inability of Canadian authorities to prosecute its own citizens under the law if there was not a real and substantial link between the crime and the Canadian territory. 

In 2013 CFPOA was amended, bringing it more in line with the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the U.K Bribery Act. With the amendment came an increase in active investigations and prosecutions. In 2012 only three cases were brought forward and in early 2013 it was reported that the Anti-Corruption Unit, created by the RCMP, had 35 active investigations. Over the past year the IACU has had some changes and now falls under the Federal Policing mandate. They are still doing basically the same investigations but as part of the Financial Integrity Unit. 

Fisher’s career with the RCMP has gone further than he could have imagined and is always evolving.  

“I feel pretty fortunate to have it, it’s been a really good, very interesting job. Good in that I have gotten to go speak at some very high level conferences, like the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) conference in Paris,” said Fisher.

“There are a lot of interesting things going on in the background that we get to investigate and look into. As a result of that too, I have been able to interview or meet with some interesting people, a lot of high level government officials and ambassadors to other countries and ambassadors from other countries to Canada and things like that.”

Fisher has been with the RCMP for just under 19 years. He started in Northern Alberta, working at isolated posts, then moved on to First Nations policing, investigating organized crime, and then became the detachment commander for Bassano before moving into the Integrated Market Enforcement Team, investigating stock market frauds and crimes, inside trading and market manipulation complaints. That set the groundwork for where he is today.  

In 2012 Fisher joined the team overseeing all corruption investigations and in 2013 became the team commander for IACU. Shortly after he was asked to represent Canada at the OECD conference on bribery and corruption in Paris. He was asked to give the opening presentation at the conference, which was to delegates of 26 countries. The talk focused on best practices developed in dealing with joint international investigations, internationally protected persons, senior government offices and those with diplomatic immunity. Fisher has also assisted in creating a syllabus for Japan’s program for corruption enforcement programs. This past May he presented at the International Foreign Bribery Task (IFBT) Force in London, England. 

In many countries bribes are solicited in order to bring in supplies, build infrastructure, or even deliver disaster recovery funds. While many would never want to pay the bribe, they will so that they can deliver the services to those who need it, continuing the cycle. It has been said that there is $15 trillion lost each year to corruption and bribery. 

“These funds are being diverted away from their intended recipients, often the people who need them the most in developing nations.  If you think about if that money could get to where its supposed to be going, how much better peoples lives would be,” said Fisher. 

If everybody stopped paying, then everyone would be a on a level playing field, but a lot of people feel that they have to pay it to not miss out, said Fisher.

Corruption occurs in all industries, but the main focus of Canada’s investigations have been in the extractive industries such as oil and gas and mining or in the construction fields. 

“When it comes right down to it they’re in the business to make money so if they have to pay a $5 million bribe to get a contract they are certainly going to make up for it somewhere else. You see gas wells exploding, buildings and bridges collapsing and roads deteriorating a lot faster than they should because they have short-cut some of the standards on construction.”

There are no real checks and balances in place, bribes are paid and work begins, but again down the road when the building or the bridge collapses innocent people are paying for it. 

The IFBT is working on a number of joint investigations and has been looking at proactive strategies to stop or reduce corruption. They are looking at major international events like the Olympics to figure out how to set up a screening process and to train coordinator and event planners on how to watch for corruption and how to set up the checks and balances in their bidding processes. 

Fisher said the task force is still working on existing corruption that has already occurred 70-80 per cent of the time, and the other 20 per cent of the time they are trying to come up with proactive strategies to help countries, governments and event organizers try to eliminate the corruption before it happens. 

“If you make it difficult, or you make the organizers as well as the various companies that are bidding on projects aware that the task force is already involved and kind of overseeing some of the bidding process they are less likely to either offer a bribe or the government officials are less likely to request a bribe. We’re just trying to keep things a little more transparent,” said Fisher.

As of June IACU started to work on a couple of trans-national cases with the FBI, mainly out of Washington D.C. and New York, and another one in the Middle East said Fisher, but he was unable to elaborate more at this time. There are currently active cases in every continent except Antarctica. 

One case he could talk about involved a main witness, who was being detained in a communist country and had had his passport confiscated. He managed to escape and fled to Indonesia, then Singapore.  

“We were able to make last minute travel arrangements and I, along with one of my investigators, flew to Singapore to interview the witness, corroborate information and verify source information of some of the documentary evidence.  Prior to attending, we had to get clearance from the Justice Department in Singapore and upon arrival, I met with the Canadian Ambassador and Liaison Officer to update them on our activity,” said Fisher. 

Every day can bring a new challenge with it, which is something he enjoys about his current role in the RCMP. Some days he can’t wait to get back to the office because something might be about to break in an investigation or new information came in that he can look into. 

“Even five years ago I never thought I would be doing any of the things I am doing today. You just don’t expect to be travelling internationally and be dealing with heads of government departments and that sort of thing. It’s been a nice development, it’s a unique opportunity,” said Fisher.

“I was fortunate to have really good teachers all through school in Strathmore and I think it had a lot of positive influence from that end. I really enjoyed my time at school and I still run into some of my teachers here and there and it’s nice to talk to them.”

Only time will tell where Fisher’s career will continue to go, but for now he is happy to spend each day looking out for those who can’t necessarily do it for themselves.

crime world-wide