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Though he has spent most of his career as a chartered accountant, Canada’s new – and first – procurement ombudsman was born to be a lawyer.

 Shahid Minto’s father was one, as were several of his uncles and about 20 cousins, nephews and nieces. Practising law, says the 62-year-old, Pakistani-born Minto, was “the family’s business.” So, he attended the University of Peshawar, near the Afghanistan border, graduated with a law degree and joined his dad’s practice in Islamabad, where he did commercial legal work.

 But Minto only lasted six months on the job before he decided to leave the country and move to Canada in 1969. Sticking with law wasn’t an option since it would have been “awkward” to explain to his father, Mahmud, who was also a senator in Pakistan’s Parliament, why he chose to pursue a practice here but not back home. Instead, Minto decided to become a CA, thinking audits and tax work would serve as a nice combination with his legal background. What resulted was more than a low-key, nine-to-five desk job.

 Following a brief stint in the private sector working in forensic accounting , Minto has made history – twice, so far – in the public service. He recently served as the first chief risk officer at Public Works and Government Services Canada. And, as of last month, he is the federal government’s first procurement ombudsman, a position he has held on an interim basis since last September.

 Established through the Federal Accountability Act, his office, in part, reviews departmental procurement practices and complaints from Canadian suppliers regarding contract awards for goods, under $25,000 in value, and services below $100,000.  Minto will mainly deal with a quartet of federal departments involved with procurement: National Defence, which identifies the requirements for major purchases; Industry Canada, which looks at the regional spin-offs; the  Treasury Board, which authorizes the funding, and Public Works, which sends out the contracts.

 As ombudsman, he will examine the entire procurement process “from cradle to grave,” an approach he learned while working in the Office of the Auditor General of Canada.  “If you only looked at one aspect of something, you could never connect the dots,” says Minto, who spent more than half of his 28 years at the AG’s office serving as the assistant auditor general.

 Clearly, the mother of all such thorough investigations occurred toward the end of his time there when he was put in charge of the sponsorship program file. Members of Minto’s team ended up testifying at the public inquiry headed by retired Quebec Superior Court judge John Gomery. But in preparing Auditor General Sheila Fraser’s February 2004 report on “adscam,” Minto’s group had complete access to departments, Crown corporations and central government agencies to determine how money was flowing between them. Once the dots were connected, “we realized the magnitude of the issue,” says Minto.

 The breadth of the investigation into the sponsorship program surpassed the review Public Works initially conducted on the program, and it led to the deputy minister approaching Minto with a proposition. “He said, ‘Look, you’ve been criticizing us for 28 years. Do you want to come and help us fix this place?’” Minto laughs. “It was an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

 In September 2005, he joined Public Works and established the “chief risk officer” function at the department, the first such position within the federal government. His job was to strengthen “the fairness, transparency and accountability” of Public Works’ operations in the post-sponsorship era.  
But the arrival of the Harper Conservatives a year later would present a new opportunity through the government’s new federal accountability legislation that included the creation of the Office of the Procurement Ombudsman. Unlike the chief risk officer’s job at Public Works, where he reported to the deputy minister and had his mandate confined to the department, Minto says he now reports directly to Public Works Minister Michael Fortier and operates “totally arms length” from the government.

 Minto says his goals are to “strengthen the confidence” of Canadians in the federal government’s procurement process and to “demystify” a system he acknowledges is “so complicated, so convoluted with so many players in it.”

However, in a professional life filled with chasing down money trails and poring over balance sheets, he credits his legal background with giving him the ability to identify what’s relevant in documents and then to formulate a balanced view on an issue. Says Minto: “The law teaches you how to deal with complicated situations in a very organized manner.”