Christiane Ouimet, the public sector integrity commissioner who fielded complaints from whistleblowers in the federal public service, is facing a probe herself after being the subject of a complaint from a member of her own staff.
The Public Sector Integrity Commissioner's office announced Wednesday that Ms. Ouimet had retired as of Monday, three years into a seven-year mandate, and that Auditor-General Sheila Fraser is investigating the commission.
The probe follows a massive turnover in employees at the commission. Almost all of the 22 staff members at the commission quit in the first year after Ms. Ouimet, a career civil servant with 25 years in the upper ranks of the federal bureaucracy, was named the first integrity commissioner in 2007.
The Integrity Commissioner's office was created by the federal Conservatives as part of their accountability package written in the wake of the Liberal sponsorship scandal in which federal employees were reluctant to shed light on wrongdoing.
In her annual report that was made public last week, Ms. Ouimet said she had received "significantly more inquiries" from public servants in fiscal year 2009-10 and had launched nine new investigations dealing with both disclosures of wrongdoing and reprisals.
Despite the increased activity, Ms. Ouimet made no findings of wrongdoing. In fact, in her three years on the job, she received 170 complaints from civil servants and had never determined that wrong had been committed.
Normand Desjardins, the office's former chief of investigations, said in an interview Wednesday that he decided to retire shortly after the arrival of Ms. Ouimet. Like many of his fellow employees, he had worked for the Public Sector Integrity Office that preceded the establishment of the commission.
"In my case, her approach with me was not the best and I didn't agree with the way she was addressing me," Mr. Desjardins said. He would not say whether he is the person who complained to the Auditor-General. By law, it is the Auditor-General who must field any complaint from within the Integrity Commissioner's office.
Although just one person is named as the complainant, there were many people in the office who were "witnesses" to it, said Mr. Desjardins, but he would not provide details of what was alleged. Mr. Desjardins told Radio Canada, the French arm of the CBC, that Ms. Ouimet did not ask her staff for their opinions and did not have two-way conversations. "She spoke, we listened," he said.
The Auditor-General's office acknowledged that it has received a complaint and had commenced an investigation. Ms. Ouimet could not be located for comment on Wednesday.
Sylvie Lecompte, a spokeswoman for the Integrity Commissioner, said she could not comment on whether Ms. Ouimet's departure was related to the audit. "It's a personal decision to retire," Ms. Lecompte said. "I know that she was thinking about retirement over the last few weeks."
Ms. Ouimet had recently released her third report to Parliament and Ms. Lecompte said the commissioner wanted to table that document before leaving. She said Ms. Ouimet had said early in her mandate that she did not plan to stay the whole seven years.
As to the large number of staff who have quit, Ms. Lecompte pointed out that many of the original employees had been part of the office that predated the commission.
"I know there has been some turnover and I understand it's very frequent when mandates change," she said. "It's also an issue that small agencies face."
David Hutton, the executive director of the Federal Accountability Initiative for Reform (FAIR) that helps federal public employees to speak out without fear of reprisal, said the law that created the Integrity Commissioner is riddled with loopholes and shrouded with unnecessary and impenetrable secrecy.
Ms. Ouimet "could have done something with this law even though it's flawed," he said. But "she's gone in exactly the opposite direction. Her strategy seems to be designed not to find anything."