PM Harper defends hefty payout to disgraced former integrity boss
Posted Mar 10, 2011 02:46:11 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
OTTAWA – Stephen Harper says a half-million dollar payout was the cheapest and fastest way to get rid of disgraced integrity commissioner Christiane Ouimet.
The prime minister says the government had no legal authority to simply fire Ouimet.
Federal lawyers advised that the best way to hasten her departure was to pay her more than $500,000 in a separation agreement that bound her to secrecy.
The agreement was signed last Oct. 7 and Ouimet announced her resignation shortly thereafter – just two months before Auditor General Sheila Fraser issued a scathing report on Ouimet’s troubled office.
Fraser found Ouimet bullied her staff and failed to fulfil her mandate to protect public servants who blow the whistle on wrongdoing within the federal government.
Ouimet is due to appear before a Commons committee later today.
