Mario Dion

Mario Dion – April 30, 2012

Re: “Canada’s integrity commissioner: in full pursuit of the inconsequential,” (The Hill Times, April 23, p. 15).

Last December, I accepted a seven-year term as Canada’s public sector integrity commissioner because I strongly believed in the mandate of the office and felt that I would be able to successfully implement the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act, as Parliament intended it to be.

After reading David Hutton’s opinion piece in The Hill Times, I felt it would be appropriate for me to take this opportunity to explain the mandate of my office and to counter the assertion that we are involved in any inconsequential work.

Paul Gaboury – April 4, 2012

The Public Sector Integrity Commissioner, Mario Dion, yesterday asked the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Tribunal to intervene in the case of Dr. Gerard Lambert, who was fired for insubordination in 2004 by Health Canada, along with scientists Shiv Chopra and Margaret Haydon. This is only the third case referred to the Tribunal since its inception in 2007.

Commissioner Dion stated that there were reasonable grounds to believe that the department had terminated Lambert's interim appointment in retaliation -- because he had made a protected disclosure of wrongdoing. He said he will ask the Tribunal to order remedies for Lambert.

Sonya Bell – March 8, 2012

Christiane Ouimet’s old office has finally found a public servant whose wrongdoing rivals that committed by its own former commissioner.

A “bully” and an “autocrat” who used federal funds to buy two flatscreen televisions for her home, several $80 water bottles from her private business, and a massage chair that ended up in the men’s washroom has landed an unsavory distinction: being the first person fingered by the Public Sector Integrity Commission for wrongdoing.

Lorne Gunter – March 9, 2012

Every year for the past 14, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) has handed out Teddy awards to the worst examples of wasteful spending by federal, provincial and municipal governments.

This year, they also gave a lifetime achievement award to former Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe because of his decades-long commitment to outrageous federal spending and because he has managed to earn a federal pension of nearly $141,000 a year, despite having spent his career trying to break up the country.