Page 4 - Layout 1

The Office of the Public Sector In-tegrity Commissioner has announced it will not be releasing the results of third party re-view of its closed case files until after the federal election –the report was scheduled for completion on March 30.

The Office retained the services of De-loitte to conduct a third party review of all closed case files back to 2007 (when theOf-fice was established) in response to the scathing report released last year by Audi-tor-General Shelia Fraser. Fraser reported that then-Public Safety Commis-sioner Christiane Ouimet had failed to do her job, only investigating five of 228 complaints filed during her time in the po-sition. One of those complaints was from Canadian Forces veteran Sean Bruyea; his complaint that officials in Veterans Affairs shared his personal andmedical information was dismissed by Ouimet’s office. Bruyea has since received a federal apology and an o u t - o f - c o u r t settlement.

Ouimet quit last year in themidst of the Auditor-General’s investigation. Since then, Mario Dion has been appointed Interim In-tegrity Commissioner and Deloitte was hired to conduct the comprehensive third party review of the closed files. However, Canadians will have to wait to learn what Deloitte has found until after the new gov-ernment has been elected.

A notice posted on the Office website states:

“Given the recent election call, the Of-ficewill not release any information relating to the content of the [Deloitte] report until after the election campaign. It is common practice for public sector organizations to refrain from releasing new information dur-ing an election campaign. During this pe-riod, the Office will nonetheless begin putting in place corrective measures to ad-dress any matters identified in the Deloitte review.”

On March 10 of this year, Ouimet ap-peared before the Commons Standing

Committee for PublicAccounts after a par-liamentary summons to do so after failing to appear once before. She testified to the circumstances that led up to her resignation and her over $530,000 severance package from the Harper government.

In the videoed testimony, Ouimet clearly and emphatically states that the “Auditor-General is wrong,” and “…the vast majority of the cases we received did not fall under our mandate.”

The committee plans to call Fraser and Ouimet for simultaneous testimony at a fu-ture meeting – if the closed case review has been made public by then, it may shed some light on what went so very wrong. One really has to wonder why a public servant, who quits rather than answer ques-tions about competency, should receive a half-million dollar settlement while wounded veterans have to fight for every nickel from the government they serve.

AFP/AAC is pleased to introduce LCol(Ret’d) Daniel O’Connor, the newest association director who was elected to the board in November 2010 at theAnnual General Meet-ing.

LCol O’Connor was born in Lindsay, Ontario in 1952. After spending three years in theWest Nova Scotia Regiment rising to the rank of Sgt, in 1970 he attended the Royal Mili-tary College in Kingston, Ontario where he graduated in 1974 with a degree in electrical engineering. He was posted to Petawawa and then Edmonton as a Signals Of-ficer with 2 Combat Group Headquarters and Signal Squadron and theAirborne Regiment Signal Squadron.While with the Airborne Regiment, LCol O’Connor qualified in freefall parachuting and as a patrol pathfinder. In 1978, he transferred to the infantry corps, being first posted to The Royal Canadian Regiment in London, Ontario.

His subsequent postings included theArmoured Infantry Course in Dorset, England in 1982 for one year for the design of armoured fighting vehicles, and then at the Tactics Division

in CFB Gagetown from 1982 to 1984. LCol O’Connor left the Regular Force in 1984 and transferred to the BlackWatch in Montreal, where he served as Coy Comd, DCO, and then as Commanding Officer from 1989 to 1993. He retired from active service with the Regiment in 1993, continuing to serve on the Advisory Board. LCol O’Connor was appointed as Honorary Lieutenant-Colonel of the Regiment in June, 2009. Between 1984 and 1989, LCol O’Connor was enrolled at McGill University in Montreal and completed bachelor de-grees in common law and civil law, and earned his master’s of business administration. He has been a member of the Quebec Bar since 1990 and has practised since then in priate practice in commercial law and civil litigation. LCol O’Connor is also involved with the Last Post Fund, which operates the funeral and burial programof VeteransAf-fairs Canada. He served as a director of the Quebec Branch of the Last Post Fund for 14 years, having served as branch president for two years, and currently as national vice-presi-dent for Eastern Canada.

His hobbies include bagpiping, carpentry, skiing and run-ning. LCol O’Connor is married to Barbara O’Connor and they have seven children.