In response to a promise made in the Liberal Party’s 1993 Red Book the office of the Ethics Commissioner was created by the newly elected government in 1994. Howard Wilson, appointed by then Prime Minister Jean Chrétien became Canada’s first ethics watchdog. Wilson was a counsellor rather than a commissioner. He had no independence. Appointed by the prime minister, Wilson reported to and was responsible to the Office of the Prime Minister and critics railed at the fact that the person in charge of the ethics of cabinet lacked even a scintilla of independence. Chrétien defended the system saying that...