OTTAWA - John Gomery is returning to Ottawa, with some pointed questions about why the current Conservative government has ignored most of the reforms he recommended after the Liberal-inspired sponsorship scandal.
The now-retired judge, who spent two years delving into the sponsorship affair, will be the star witness Thursday at the House of Commons committee on government operations.
"It seemed perfectly logical to invite (him) to come and lay out his concerns," said New Democrat MP Charlie Angus, who won all-party support for his proposal to hear from Gomery.
It's not clear, however, whether the session will be a one-time chance for Gomery to trumpet his views, or the start of a wider-ranging study of how to revamp the way Ottawa works.
Angus said Tuesday he'll "certainly be pushing for follow-up" with further testimony from more witnesses.
But Diane Marleau, the Liberal committee chair, noted the panel has a full slate of other business in coming weeks, and she's not sure there will be room to pursue any issues raised by Gomery.
"The agenda gets pretty crowded at times," she said. "But you never know."
Daryl Kramp, the Conservative vice-chair, showed little enthusiasm for extended hearings on the criticisms Gomery has already voiced about Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government.
"Personally, I think it's just going to be a one-off," Kramp said of the former judge's appearance.
Like other Tories, he pointed to the already-enacted Accountability Act as Harper's main response to the sponsorship scandal.
"I think we've moved a long way," said Kramp. "Have we built the total vehicle? No, but I think we've assembled a lot of the parts."
The accountability legislation included, among other things, reforms to party financing and lobbying and better protection for civil service whistleblowers.
But critics say some of the measures didn't go far enough and others have yet to be fully implemented in practice.
Gomery, in an interview with The Canadian Press in January, blasted Harper for abandoning the goal of open government he espoused in opposition and adopting a top-down, tightly controlled style.
"I haven't change my mind on anything," he reiterated Tuesday. "That's basically what I felt then and what I feel now."
Gomery reiterated irritation that the Harper government has ignored his request for a comprehensive response to all his recommended reforms.
"I find it absolutely incredible," he said.
In February 2006, shortly after the Tories took power, Gomery delivered a range of recommendations that included:
- An end to the prime minister's exclusive power to appoint deputy ministers, the senior bureaucrats in every federal department.
- Limiting the authority of the Clerk of the Privy Council, the prime minister's bureaucratic right-hand man.
- More money and staff for the Commons public accounts committee to bolster its role as watchdog over government spending.
Gomery has also criticized Harper for not dong more to strengthen access-to-information legislation and for backing off on naming a public appointments commissioner to curb patronage.
In an earlier report in November 2005, Gomery lambasted the former Liberal government for letting politically-connected middlemen skim millions of taxpayers' dollars from sponsorship projects designed to promote federalism in Quebec.
Marleau, the current head of the government operations committee, was public works minister when the sponsorship program began.
But Gomery absolved her and instead blamed her successor Alfonso Gagliano, then-prime minister Jean Chretien and his chief of staff Jean Pelletier.
None of the three were accused of personal wrongdoing, but Gomery said they were politically responsible for letting the program go off the rails. All have since gone to court to challenge the findings.
