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Revision as of 15:02, 10 October 2008 by Linjanwil (talk | contribs) (Replaced outdated entry with updated, longer bio and more links.)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)André Marin, born January 12, 1965, is the Ombudsman of Ontario. The Office of the Ontario Ombudsman operates in the tradition of the classical legislative ombudsman: It is a fully independent, impartial watchdog agency that oversees the government of Ontario, including about 500 ministries, agencies, corporations, tribunals, boards and commissions. The Ombudsman is appointed by an all-party committee and has a fixed five-year term. His powers are set out in the Ombudsman Act.
Early career
Marin has an extensive background in the oversight of public institutions. After graduating from the University of Ottawa law school (magna cum laude) in 1989, he worked as an assistant Crown attorney and part-time professor of law in Ottawa, Canada until 1996. From September 1996 to June 1998, he was director of Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit (SIU), Canada’s only independent civilian agency for investigating incidents in which police officers have caused serious injury or death.
In June 1998, Marin became Canada’s first military ombudsman, a post he held until his appointment as Ontario’s ombudsman in April 2005. He set up the office in Ottawa and was responsible for the investigation of complaints from members of the Canadian forces. He pioneered the “Special Ombudsman Response Team” (SORT) for investigating broad systemic issues, such as post-traumatic stress disorder among soldiers, compensation for the families of soldiers who are killed or wounded, and chemical agent testing during World War II. His recommendations as military ombudsman concentrated on ensuring accountability, transparency and strong ethics in the Canadian military.
Achievements as Ombudsman
Appointed as Ombudsman of Ontario in April 2005, Marin revamped the office to handle some 20,000 individual public complaints and inquiries as well as about half a dozen major systemic investigations each year. His SORT model – a dedicated team of experienced investigators who conduct large-scale field investigations into high-profile, complex issues – has raised the public profile of the Toronto-based Office of the Ombudsman and sparked government changes affecting millions of Ontarians. For example, SORT investigations have sparked major overhauls of, among other things, the province’s procedures for newborn screening, its property tax assessment system, funding for the disabled and special-needs children, out-of-country medical treatment, crime victim compensation, legal aid and the lottery system.
Ombudsman mandate
Marin is known for using for plain, sometimes blunt language in his reports, and coined the term “rulitis” to describe a government bureaucracy’s slavish adherence to rules at the expense of common sense. He has also repeated the call of his predecessors to have the Ombudsman’s mandate extended to key areas of the public sector that are outside his jurisdiction, although they are funded by provincial tax dollars: This is the so-called MUSH sector, comprising Municipalities, Universities, School Boards and Hospitals, as well as children’s aid societies and police. In his annual reports released in 2008 and 2007, Marin pointed out that his office receives hundreds of complaints every year from people who have had serious problems with these institutions, but is powerless to help them. He also noted that Ontario lags behind all other provinces in Canada in extending the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction to these areas.
As of January 2008, the Ombudsman’s mandate was extended to include responsibility for enforcing the province’s new open meeting requirements for municipalities. Amendments to the Ontario Municipal Act establish a complaints regime whereby members of the public can complain and trigger an investigation if they feel a municipal council, committee or board has improperly met behind closed doors. The Act designates the Ombudsman as the investigator for complaints about closed meetings in all municipalities that have not appointed their own investigator – approximately 200 of Ontario’s 445 municipalities.
To meet this responsibility and to raise awareness of the importance of accountability and transparency in local government, Marin created a new dedicated team in the Ombudsman’s Office in June 2008, called OMLET – the Open Meeting Law Enforcement Team. In February 2008, he investigated complaints about a closed meeting in the City of Greater Sudbury concerning a controversy over an Elton John concert. The city was found not to be in violation of the law but the report recommended greater transparency and provided a wealth of legal research for future interpretation of the law. In October 2008, the Ombudsman published the Sunshine Law Handbook: Open Municipal Meetings in Ontario, to further assist municipal officials and the public in their awareness and interpretation of the new requirements.
Other information
In May 2007, Marin was elected to a two-year term as president of the Forum of Canadian Ombudsman, representing public and private ombudsmen across the country. He has also served as North American regional vice-president of the International Ombudsman Institute since July 2006.
A sought-after speaker on issues of ethics, oversight and organizational malaise, Marin also shares his office’s expertise with other oversight agencies across Canada and around the world. In 2007 and 2008, he and his staff were asked by the Canadian Conference of Parliamentary Ombudsmen to conduct a course called “Sharpening Your Teeth: Advanced Training for Administrative Watchdogs,” which has been attended by more than 100 administrative investigators and ombudsmen from most Canadian provinces, several Canadian federal agencies and U.S. states, as well as from the U.K., Australia and the Caribbean.
Marin is the sixth Ombudsman of Ontario since the post was created in 1975. His predecessors and their terms of office are: Arthur Maloney (1975-1979), Donald Morand (1979-1984), Daniel Hill (1984-1989), Roberta Jamieson (1989-1999) and Clare Lewis (200-2005).