'If this office was truly this important to the Government of Canada, they would have thought through this a little bit more'
OTTAWA — The next federal ethics watchdog will have to take a pay cut, as the governing Liberals have decided the next person to oversee their ethical issues should do so for $110,000 less annually than the predecessor.
On March 28, the federal government launched an “open, transparent and merit-based” selection process to find the next Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, whose job is “promoting and safeguarding a critical part of the public sector’s core values and ethics.”
The promised salary starts at $228,900 and can reach up to $269,200.
What the job posting doesn’t advertise: that’s a $110,000, or 33 per cent, pay cut, the National Post has learned.
Up to now, all three of Canada’s ethics commissioners, Mary Dawson, Mario Dion and current interim appointee Martine Richard, were granted the same salary as a Federal Court judge, which is $338,800.
As an independent officer of Parliament, the ethics commissioner’s selection process is overseen by the Privy Council Office (PCO), though the appointment is ultimately made on the advice of cabinet and must be approved by a resolution in the House of Commons following consultation with every leader of a recognized federal party.
PCO did not respond to a series of questions on the change in salary by deadline.
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The last permanent ethics commissioner, Mario Dion, resigned in late February with two years left in his seven-year mandate because of health concerns.
During his tenure, he found five senior Liberals in violation of ethics laws, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, cabinet ministers Dominic LeBlanc and Mary Ng, former minister Bill Morneau and parliamentary secretary Greg Fergus.
In an interview during his last week in office, Dion lambasted the government for failing to take ethics seriously.
“The public has to believe that ethics are taken seriously, and they have yet to have any big evidence of that since 2018,” Dion told the Post.
“The (Conflict of Interest) Act has been there for 17 years for God’s sake, so maybe the time has come to do something different so that we don’t keep repeating the same errors. After 17 years, maybe we should realize that something is not working,” he said.
Robert Shepherd, professor at Carleton University’s School of Public Police and Administration, says it’s hard to explain why the government suddenly felt the need to significantly cut the ethics commissioner’s job.
But he believes it will have a serious negative impact on the office’s reputation and ability to attract someone like Mario Dion again, thus diminishing its effectiveness.
The law states eligible candidates must either be former judges or members of a federal or provincial board, commission or tribunal with relevant experience.
“The question that I have for Privy Council is, no one is complaining about the $338,000 (salary). So why, in this case, are we dropping it by $100,000?” he said in an interview.
“It’s just going to lower completely the status of the office, not because of the salary, but because of the likely persons that are going to be looking to apply for that position,” he added. “The effect may be that the office will be less effective than it was before with a more junior person at the helm.”
He also said it sends the signal that the government is giving even less value to the office than it did before.
“The optics of this is that ‘We’re just not attaching as much importance to the place as we did before,’ ” he said.
The Liberals are embroiled in another brewing controversy relating to the ethics commissioner office, this time over the fact that the interim head they nominated earlier this week, Martine Richard, is the sister-in-law of Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc.
Opposition parties called on the government to cancel Richard’s appointment. She worked for the office for a decade and was Dion’s second-in-command until his resignation.
Friday, Trudeau told reporters that Richard has a conflict-of-interest screen in place to shield her from anything involving LeBlanc. He also said that the office is best placed to know how to deal with conflicts of interest.
“If there is any office in the country that understands how to manage conflicts of interest and ethical perception issues, it is that office there that has always done exceptional work at ensuring the confidence of Canadians,” Trudeau said.
For government ethics expert Robert Shepherd, Richard’s nomination as interim commissioner will do damage to the office’s reputation.
The government “could have given a little bit more careful thought to the appointment,” he said. “If this office was truly this important to the Government of Canada, they would have thought through this a little bit more.”