It’s official as of Tuesday morning: André Marin is now the former Ontario ombudsman, ending his 10-year tenure as one of the Ontario government’s highest-profile and most tenacious watchdogs. The Liberal government, refusing to extend his tenure a second time, has named Marin’s deputy, Barbara Finlay, as the acting ombudsman.
Marin told reporters Monday he’s not going anywhere – he’ll re-submit his name for consideration if a new hiring process is started – but in the meantime he’s worried about what a vacant office will mean for Ontario.
“In the law, all of the powers exercised by my staff are delegated from the ombudsman,” Marin said. “Take the ombudsman out of the picture; you don’t have an office anymore.”
Pointing to other provincial accountability officers – like the most recent Environmental Commissioner and Information and Privacy Commissioner – Marin says it’s nearly unprecedented for an office like his to be left empty while forcing the incumbent to re-apply.
While Marin is unlikely to return as ombudsman given the governing party’s resistance, he’s had a long, consequential, and often controversial tenure as one of the parliamentary officers charged with keeping the government honest.
Expanded powers
The biggest thing Marin can undoubtedly be credited for is that his successor, whoever that is, will inherit a much more powerful office than he did. When Marin was appointed for his first term in 2005, the Ontario ombudsman’s powers had expanded little since the office was created in 1975. With last year’s passage of Bill 8, the Public Sector and MPP Accountability and Transparency Act¸ Marin got most of what he’d been advocating for since shortly after he took the job: oversight of municipalities, universities, and schools. Marin had also wanted oversight of hospitals, but that job will go instead to a separate Patient ombudsman, who (unlike Marin) will be a government appointee in the Ministry of Health and Long-term Care.
Hydro One
One of Marin’s biggest files while in the ombudsman’s office was dealing with Hydro One, the provincially-owned electricity transmission utility that also delivers local electricity service to some parts of the province. Marin said earlier this year that his office was flooded with complaints when Hydro One changed its billing methods, estimating that more than 100,000 people were eventually affected by the changes. Marin’s investigation ended with 65 recommendations for improving Hydro One’s customer relations.
G20Unlink
Marin’s office was far from alone in scrutinizing the conduct of the provincial government in the aftermath of the 2010 G20 conference in Toronto: the conduct of local and provincial police was subject to multiple investigations by the provincial Special Investigations Unit (SIU) as well as a review by Retired Ontario Chief Justice Roy McMurtry. Marin’s review, however, was one of the most critical of the government. Marin focused on the use of the now-repealed Public Works Protection Act (PWPA) to bolster security during the conference, which he said was likely unconstitutional and led to police abuses during that summer weekend. The government moved to repeal the PWPA repeatedly in the years since the G20 but only managed to finally kill it with the return of the Liberal majority after the 2014 election.
Open Meetings
It won’t just be Liberal officials happy to see the end of Marin’s tenure. Municipal councillors across the province have locked horns with the ombudsman, since Marin took a broad interpretation of the one power he had over municipalities before the passage of Bill 8: ensuring that cities and towns don’t abuse their powers to make decisions behind closed doors.
Marin’s oversight of open meeting rules led to fireworks in multiple municipalities, but may have caused the most public acrimony in Sudbury. Marin was called “unbelievably rude” by Sudbury councillors for his criticism of council. Marin did not accuse Sudbury officials of breaking the rules around open meetings, but did say council had tried to obstruct and disrupt his investigation into councillors’ handling of the city’s own Auditor General in 2011 and 2012. Sudbury replaced Marin with an independent investigator, then invited him back early this year after elections returned a new council and mayor.
While Marin argued he was improving municipal accountability, he was criticized for his conduct, and not just by councillors. Professor Andrew Sancton of Western University says Marin was overly broad in his interpretation of closed-door meeting rules, capturing informal gatherings the law was never intended to regulate.
“He made up his own definition of what a municipal meeting was. Nobody in Canada had ever claimed that a meeting of a council could take place just because a group of councillors got together informally,” Sancton says. “No judge had ever said that, and the legislation doesn’t come close to saying that.”
Despite his criticisms – including of Marin’s use of Twitter, which has been a recurring complaint of Marin’s foes – Sancton does have some positive things to say about Marin.
“In many ways, he’s been extremely effective. He’s made people much more aware of the office … it’s clear he’s done some very important work,” says Sancton. “He’s done a lot of good things, but he over-sells everything.”
Image credit: Ontario Ombudsman/flickr.com