Canada Post boss quits ahead of firing
Canada's highest-paid bureaucrat quit his 400,000dollar-a-year post, pre-empting his anticipated firing for racking 2 million dollars in receiptless travel and hospitality expenses.
Andre Ouellet faxed his resignation letter two days after meeting with Revenue Minister John McCallum, who hinted he was prepared to fire the crown corporation president after an audit showed he had run up hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenses annually for the last eight years without receipts.
At the same time, the audit alleged Ouellet meddled with government tendering by directing contracts to Liberal-friendly firms. In his letter to McCallum, Ouellet suggested the Martin government was planning to fire him to avoid an inevitable political showdown in the new minority government.
"I am conscious that you have a minority government and you do not have much room to manoeuvre," he wrote, noting that a "majority of members of Parliament" do not accept his expenses.
"Even if you would like to make a business decision in my case, it is very clear to me that at the end you will have to make a political decision."
Ouellet was a powerful Liberal cabinet minister under both Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chretien before stepping down in 1996 to become chairman of Canada Post, taking over the president's office in 1999.
He leaves his job with no severance pay and it is up to Canada Post to decide whether it wants to try to recoup any of the questionable expenses, said McCallum, who served notice that he is washing his hands of the matter now that Ouellet is gone.
"From the point of view of the government, this ends the matter," McCallum said
McCallum, who described Ouellet's departure as "welcoming," said he had not made a final decision about firing Ouellet when the resignation arrived.
Speaking in Iqaluit, Prime Minister Paul Martin said, when asked if Ouellet should have been fired, "Mr. Ouellet decided to resign and I think that he has taken the course of action which is really appropriate under the circumstances."
In a recent interview, Ouellet justified his expenses by saying he had turned around the fortunes of Canada Post, which had record profits of 253 million dollars in 2003.
"My travels were in relation to promote the company and to allow the company to be more profitable and a better run company," he said.
His resignation is the latest development in an ongoing sponsorship scandal that has plagued the Liberal government and played a key role in voters reducing the party to a minority government in the June election.
Ouellet had been suspended with pay for the last six months, after Auditor General Sheila Fraser issued a report in February on spending abuses in the federal sponsorship program that involved government departments and Crown corporations, including Canada Post.
Acting Canada Post president Anne Joynt will remain in the job until the government finds a permanent replacement through a professional search as part of a promise to end a longstanding practice of political patronage for some of the most responsible and lucrative jobs in the country. Critics said the government should not dismiss the Ouellet affair because he has quit.
Among other things, the Liberals should be trying to recoup some of Ouellet's expenses if he cannot produce receipts, said the opposition Conservatives and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
Brian Pallister, the Conservative revenue critic, said that the government has treated Ouellet with kid gloves by giving him his salary for six months while awaiting the results of the audit report.
