October 26, 2004

'Until further notice this is where I am'

A parliamentary committee is set to recommend that Privacy Commissioner George Radwanski be fired for alleged wrongdoing to be detailed in an upcoming report, a source said yesterday.

Committee members spent the weekend going over a draft version of the report that will be made public later this week. They're speaking by conference call today to go over changes.

Meanwhile, pressure is also growing on Radwanski to leave the post of his own accord. Deputy Prime Minister John Manley suggested in a television interview yesterday that might be for the best. "He has to decide whether he can fulfil his functions given the situation that's arisen," Manley told CTV's Question Period.

And Radwanski's own staff urged him to do just that during a demonstration last Friday.

But Radwanski, accused of misleading the committee about his expenses and an altered document, has said he did nothing wrong and will fight to keep his job.

Reached yesterday, he wouldn't comment on reports that he has spoken with top government officials trying to persuade him to go.

"I'm right here. I'm right here. Until further notice this is where I am," he said when asked if he still planned to stay on.

"I can't tell you more than that because I haven't changed my position, this is where I am."

He declined to answer other questions.

Radwanski has said the committee is out to get him because of his harsh attacks on government over privacy issues.

But committee members say their report will silence any criticism that they've been on a witch hunt.

"Anybody who thinks for a moment that this might be some kind of a witch hunt will be satisfied, I'm sure, 100 per cent, that nothing could be further from the truth," New Democrat MP Pat Martin said.

"The introduction, the evidence, the summary (in the report) make such a clear, indisputably irrefutable case of deliberate intent to mislead the committee," he added.

Yesterday, Liberal MP Judy Sgro said: "He continuously said one thing and we had evidence from others to contradict it."

A committee source said the report's main recommendation is for Radwanski to be fired.

"There's one main recommendation of our draft report and that's that the House of Commons adopt a motion for an address to Her Excellency (the Governor-General) requesting the removal of Mr. Radwanski from the position of privacy commissioner," the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"That message (would) be sent to the Senate informing senators of the decision of the House and requesting that the Senate unite with the House in that address."

The draft report also includes two other options- calling on the country's top bureaucrat, Privy Council Clerk Alex Himelfarb, to urge Radwanski to leave voluntarily and immediately recalling the House of Commons to deal with the matter.

"Those two options aren't going anywhere, I don't think," the source said.

MPs have already left the capital for their summer break and aren't scheduled to return until the middle of September. At least one member of the committee, Liberal Paul Szabo, has argued the matter is serious enough for Parliament to be recalled, but others believe that's impractical.

The MPs unanimously said in an earlier report that they'd lost confidence in Radwanski.

The federal privacy commissioner is accused, among other things, of misleading the committee about an altered letter and of failing to turn over all of his expense forms when asked. He was given a chance to recant his earlier testimony on the last day of a series of closed-door sessions earlier this month, but refused, MPs said.

This week's report will detail the contradictions between what Radwanski told the committee and what other witnesses, mainly his own employees, testified happened.

It will highlight key ways in which Radwanski is accused of misleading the committee.

First, it will argue that while Radwanski told the committee he wasn't available to testify on a particular date because he had out-of-town meetings, he was actually in Ottawa that day and was spotted having lunch with a member of the Prime Minister's staff.

A worker in the privacy commissioner's office testified Radwanski was grinning as he described how he'd rebuffed the committee's request to appear and said, according to a source: "That'll send them a message."

The report also argues that Radwanski tried to keep some of his expense forms from the committee- including those showing his regular weekend trips to Toronto and those of his communications chief, Dona Vallieres, who routinely accompanied him on international trips.

"That was a deliberate omission, we felt," Martin said.

As well, the report questions Radwanski's explanation of why the committee was sent a copy of a letter in which a paragraph had been dropped. Radwanski said his staff had misunderstood his directions to pull some information from the letter and create a new document. However, the committee heard testimony that Radwanski had in fact specifically called for the paragraph, which described his accountability to Parliament, to be removed from the letter even though a senior staff member warned it wasn't a good idea.

The report also points out information that has been passed to the federal spending watchdog for further investigation, including Radwanski's expense forms for lavish lunches.