George Radwanski is a former public servant, policy adviser, journalist and author. He is most recently known for having served as Privacy Commissioner of Canada until he resigned amid a controversy over allegedly too high-spending expense claims, maintaining that he was the victim of a political attack that resulted from antagonizing politicians and officials by his vigorous opposition to privacy-invasive government initiatives; he was later charged with fraud and breach of trust by the RCMP and acquitted of all charges. Prior to his appointment as Privacy Commissioner, Radwanski had had a twenty year career in journalism followed by a career as a policy adviser and consultant.
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In 1965 he began working as a reporter for the Montreal Gazette subsequently becoming a columnist, associate editor and national affairs columnist for the paper. He then moved to the Financial Times of Canada where he worked as the national affairs columnist and Ottawa editor. In the late 1970s he went to the Toronto Star where he served as editorial page editor and then editor-in-chief.
In his journalism career, Radwanski won two National Newspaper Awards for editorial writing. In 1971, he published No Mandate But Terror with Kendal Windeyer, an account of the October Crisis. In 1978, he published Trudeau, a best-selling political biography of then-Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau.
Radwanski resigned from the Star in 1985 and accepted an appointment by Ontario Premier David Peterson to head up an inquiry for the Ministry of Education into Ontario's drop-out report.
Radwanski's findings were published in 1987 as the Ontario Study of the Relevance of Education, and the Issue of Dropouts commonly known as the Radwanski Report. Radwanski concluded that the education system had become irrelevant due to the economy's shift from manufacturing to services. He found that students were uninterested in what they were being taught and did not gain the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed in a modern economy.
He issued a series of recommendations including the implementation of early childhood education, standardized testing, "destreaming" of high schools, an "outcome-based" education and the replacement of the credit system with a common core curriculum.
Several of his recommendations were taken up by subsequent governments including destreaming in grade nine (though not later), an outcomes-based curriculum in grades 1 to 9 and standardized testing at various levels.[1]
Following his study, Radwanski became a public policy and communications consultant in both the public and private sectors. In 1996 he was appointed by the federal government to conduct a review of Canada Post Corporation's mandate.
Radwanski also served as a speech writer to Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, who later appointed him Privacy Commissioner.
As Privacy Commissioner, Radwanski was outspoken in his criticism of increased surveillance by the state in the wake of the 9-11 attacks early in his tenure and the subsequent "War on Terror". In his annual report in the months following 9-11, he asserted:
Radwanski successfully campaigned against and brought an end to major federal government intrusions on privacy rights, including provisions of Bill C-36 that would have undermined the Privacy Act; the opening of letter mail by Customs agents; and the creation of a comprehensive, all-purpose seven-year Canada Customs and Revenue Agency data base on the foreign travel activities of all Canadians. He initiated a Charter challenge, later aborted by his successor, against RCMP video surveillance of public streets as a municipal police force in Kelowna, B.C., and gave 93 speeches in less than three years across Canada and abroad, along with hundreds of media interviews, to raise public awareness about privacy issues in the post-9/11 environment. He also oversaw the smooth implementation of the new federal private sector privacy law, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, that came into effect begiining in 2001.
Radwanski resigned in June 2003, less than half way into his seven year term, while under attack by a parliamentary committee. An "investigation" by the parliamentary committee alleged that he racked up $500,000 in travel and hospitality expenses and misled the Canadian House of Commons over lax spending practices in his office. The committee also accused Radwanski of falsifying a document sent to it. The committee insisted on meeting with him behind closed doors, for less than an hour, despite his demand to be heard in public as he was a public official and had nothing to hide, and it subjected him to a sweeping gag order that prevented him from publicly defending himself. In resigning, Radwanski said that the committee's behaviour had made it impossible for him to do his job.
On March 15, 2006 he was charged with fraud and breach of trust following a 26-month long Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigation into his expense claims while a public servant that was prompted by the Auditor General's report. http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1142420587696&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154&t=TS_Home] He was fully acquitted on February 13, 2009, although his former chief of staff Art Lamarche was convicted for breach of trust by an Ontario Court judge. [3][4]
Radwanski earned degrees in political science and law from McGill University.
His son, Adam Radwanski, is a political affairs columnist for the Globe and Mail.