Watchdogs

Military ombudsman rebuts complaints of delays, dysfunction in his office

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Pierre Daigle

David Pugliese – May 18, 2012

Canada’s embattled military ombudsman says he welcomes the investigation into his office ordered by Defence Minister Peter MacKay after former and current employees complained the organization has become dysfunctional, with questions raised about travel expenses, sexist jokes and whether issues raised by soldiers were being dealt with properly.

Pierre Daigle, a retired major general, will not step aside as the assessment of his office is done and intends to continue on with his role as ombudsman.

SEC Exposes Whistleblower: Inadvertent? STOP IT!!

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Larry Doyle – April 25, 2012

News this morning that an SEC attorney, in the midst of an investigation, blew the cover of a whistleblower might have been formerly thought of as inadvertent or unfortunate. America is no longer so naive.

SEC Kowtows to Fortune 500, Whistleblower Says

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Matt Reynolds – April 27, 2012

The SEC allows the nation's richest firms and financial institutions - and only the biggest and richest firms - to handpick the lawyers investigating them for corruption, a whistleblower claims in Federal Court.

Rodolfo Michelon claims that the SEC runs an exclusive "outsourcing program" for Wall Street, neutering incentives and protections for whistleblowers under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

Committee report ignores huge loopholes in lobbying law

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Democracy Watch – May 18, 2012

Democracy Watch and the national Government Ethics Coalition called on the Conservative Cabinet to go further than the recommendations of the House Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics Committee by changing the federal Lobbying Act and enforcement system in 10 key ways to finally end secret, unethical lobbying of the federal government.

The Act is so full of loopholes, it should be called the "Some Lobbying by Some Lobbyists Act." And even if all of the House Committee's recommended changes were made, secret and unethical lobbying would still be allowed because of huge loopholes in the law. All parties are to blame for this, because even though the New Democrats proposed some additional changes beyond the Committee's recommendations, their proposals also failed to address the loopholes.

US government watchdog blasts FAA over air safety

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Bart Jansen – May 8, 2012

The government's special counsel Tuesday urged stronger air safety oversight by the Federal Aviation Administration after investigating a series of problems laid out by whistle-blowers in recent years, including air-traffic controllers sleeping on the job.

"The public properly expects zero tolerance for unnecessary risks," said Special Counsel Carolyn Lerner, whose independent office reviews whistle-blower complaints and protects them.

Ottawa abolishes spy overseer’s office

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Jeff Davis – April 26, 2012

The government did away with an office mandated to oversee the activities of Canada’s spies Thursday, a move critics say opens the door to abuses of power by the secretive Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

The Office of the Inspector General of CSIS played a key role in ensuring Canada’s spies don’t break the law, according to Jez Littlewood, director of the Canadian Centre of Intelligence and Security Studies.

Police ignore letters of concern from watchdog

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Mark Brownlee – April 23, 2012

It’s “troublesome” that Ottawa police only respond to a fraction of the letters Ontario’s oversight body sends outlining concerns about investigations into officers’ misconduct, said the provincial government’s chief watchdog Sunday.

Ontario ombudsman André Marin, who investigates complaints from the public with an eye to changing how government operates, first detailed the concerns in a report released in December 2011.

Embattled head of human rights tribunal steps aside

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Shirish Chotalia

Chris Cobb – April 23, 2012

The embattled head of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has stepped aside in the aftermath of a scathing Federal Court decision that criticized her management of a landmark case involving the welfare of native children.

The Citizen has learned that tribunal chairwoman Shirish Chotalia wrote a brief email to staff on Friday saying she was departing on stress leave. “I am taking stress leave until June 17, 2012. Thank you for your continued support,” she wrote.

Santa Maria! That Ethics Commissioner’s Office works slowly

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Mary Dawson

Even in The Land Where Time Stood Still, a new standard of inertia has been achieved by Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson.

Tom Korski – April 16, 2012

There is time, and then there is Ottawa time.  It can be tabulated by phases of the moon. I know a branch of government, Archives Canada, that takes six weeks to make a photocopy. Delivery in three weeks is called “rush service.” I’m not making this up.

Yet even in The Land Where Time Stood Still, a new standard of inertia has been achieved by Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson. She recently cited Industry Minister Christian Paradis for violating the Conflict of Interest Act, but this was not startling; Paradis is quite a character. His misconduct had already been documented by enterprising reporters and the Commons’ Committee on Government Operations. More interesting was the fact it took Dawson almost two years to crack the case. 

Watchdogs need mandate to name, punish wrongdoers

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Duff Conacher – April 9, 2012

Re: Watchdog rips into F-35 project, April 4

As the federal integrity commissioner did in a recent report, and as many good government watchdogs have done in the past, the auditor-general kept secret the names of wrongdoers in his report on the fighter jet purchase multibillion-dollar boondoggle.

The public has a right to know the identity of its employees - politicians, political staff, appointees or public servants - who break the rules, and so all the good government watchdog agencies must be required by law to identify exactly which person broke which rule in each situation.

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