Three former senior executives of the Ontario Provincial Police Association on trial for fraud have emphatically denied there was any wrongdoing in their purchase of a travel agency five years ago that was allegedly financed partially with union funds.

“This was going to be another benefit for the membership. We were looking forward to it coming to fruition,” Martin Bain, a long-time OPPA board member and vice-president, testified in front of a jury Tuesday.

Bain, James Christie, the OPPA’s former president and CEO, and Karl Walsh, the ex-chief administrative officer, have all pleaded not guilty to fraud over $5,000.

The prosecution alleges Christie, Walsh and Bain tried to hide the purchase from other OPPA board members, while using their high-ranking positions to drive union business to the new venture. Lawyer Andy McKay and businessman Francis Chantiam are co-accused who also bought shares in the travel agency. They have both testified they did nothing wrong.

On Tuesday, Christie told court that under their leadership, the association had turned into the “best in the province,” after successfully negotiating lucrative contracts and pension benefits for 10,000 members, but “there was a gap in the complete package.”

The “gap” was the lack of a travel service offering good rates both for corporate and personal travel needs not just to OPP employees and their families, but to all first responders.

When the opportunity arose to buy an already established travel agency in Kitchener, Ont., it “made perfect sense to go out and do what we did,” Christie said.

All have testified there was no attempt to conceal anything from the board. The travel agency was purchased in Oct. 2014, in part, with some of their own money — which they insist was on behalf of the OPPA. They expected to be paid back after the full board approved the purchase.

The Crown alleges the trio also used a contract with McKay’s consulting firm to hide the scheme.

That agreement called for the union to pay $5,000 a month to McKay for advice, but the prosecution alleges $30,000 was diverted to buy shares in the travel agency.

Christie and Bain testified Tuesday they had every intention of presenting the plan to the rest of the board in the spring of 2015, once all the due diligence was done and the operation was running smoothly.

But prosecutor Robert Hubbard asked Christie about a text he sent in 2014 where he wrote: “We’re going to have to really work this thing if we’re to see a return in the next two to five years.”

“Wasn’t that problematic if you’ve got to present it to the board in …as you say April or May of 2015?,” Hubbard asked Christie.

“It means what it says,” replied Christie, adding that the text means the business will have to be run carefully and appropriately.

Hubbard continued. If the jury is to accept his evidence, Christie, Walsh and Bain would have to tell the board they had already purchased half a travel agency on behalf of the OPPA, with three other partners. (The third partner is Klara Kozak who was hired to manage the agency’s day-to-day operation. She was a Crown witness who testified Christie suggested to her they keep the purchase “to ourselves.” Christie denied that conversation ever took place.)

Hubbard suggested to Christie buying a travel agency would have been a tough sell to the rest of the board when they had “no hand in picking the agency and they had no hand in picking the partners.”

“I categorically disagree with that,” Christie responded. (We’re) “the OPPA three main executive decision makers, we’re the ones who made the decision.”

“But there’s five other people on the board,” Hubbard said.

“That’s correct,” Christie said. But that was also how they, as the top union officials, had handled numerous other “successful ventures.”

Both Christie and Bain told court that some of their business practices around the purchase might seem “unorthodox” and “unconventional.” They characterized themselves as out-of-the-box thinkers, but that things were always on the up and up and there was never an attempt to deceive anyone.

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They also told the jury about the impact the arrests and charges laid five years ago have had on their lives. Christie said his life turned “upside down” while Bain described for the jury the terror of staring down the barrel of multiple guns when uniform officers appeared at his home armed with a search warrant in early 2015.

Bain said the encounter left his family “traumatized.”

The trial continues.