Randall Denley: Farewell to Ontario’s sleepy government watchdog. Now we need an aggressive one

Paul Dubé, Ontario's recently retired Ombudsman. (File photo) ALL

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Did you hear that Paul Dubé has retired?

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If the name doesn’t sound familiar, don’t blame yourself. Dubé spent a decade as Ontario’s ombudsman, but he was a fellow so low-profile as to be nearly invisible, despite earning a salary of more than $400,000, with an office budget larger than that of the province’s auditor general.

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Now the province is searching for a replacement. Surely, it can do better.

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The ombudsman’s job is a big and important one, sticking up for ordinary Ontarians who are having problems with the government and broader public sector. It involves dealing with individual complaints, but more importantly, digging into systemic issues where government is falling short. The job calls for a crusader with top investigative skills and knowledge of how to attract the public and media attention that can force government to do better.

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Judged by those standards, Dubé fell well short of the mark. One really had to be an avid Queen’s Park watcher to know who Dubé was.

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Over a decade, Dubé and his staff produced just 22 standalone reports, only a few of which could be considered a substantial look at systemic issues. Among the subjects he tackled were the Township of Red Rock’s handling of a trespassing issue, the city of Brampton’s procurement practices, the meeting practices of the Elliot Lake Residential Development Commission, and bylaw enforcement in St. Clair Township and Lambton County.

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Some of his work was on more important topics, including reports on adults with developmental disabilities and oversight of government long-term care homes during the pandemic.

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The lack of output is surprising because when Dubé took the job in 2016, the ombudsman’s scope was expanded to include complaints about municipalities, universities, school boards and hospitals. Given that and a staff expansion from 86 to 186, one would have expected more.

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Dubé is said to favour quiet resolution of problems rather than making a fuss. That’s one way to do the job, but it makes life a little too easy for those who are supposed to be held accountable.

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Dubé certainly thinks he did a good job. He concluded his work with a report modestly entitled A Decade of Promoting Fairness: Expanding Access, Impact and Value. The 37-page report contains 33 pictures of Dubé and a generous helping of self-congratulation.

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Someone must have agreed with his self-assessment. Dubé was paid $239,934 in 2017, but by 2025 that had risen to $414,858.

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To put Dubé’s achievements in context, his predecessor André Marin also served 10 years. In that time, Marin conducted 25 systemic investigations on subjects as diverse as Hydro One billing problems, newborn health screening, lottery ticket fraud and monitoring of unlicensed daycares. The latter produced 113 recommendations that were accepted by the provincial government. Marin was also the driving force behind expanding the ombudsman’s scope to cover much of the broader public sector.