It happened at the University of Ottawa: Psychiatrist Louis Morissette Should Be Barred From Practice

By Denis Rancourt, PhD

This article was first published on Dissident Voice (LINK).

The Quebec medical tribunal will decide if psychiatrist-for-hire Louis Morissette was allowed to provide a hatchet job based on hearsay.

The review committee of the medical tribunal of Quebec will decide within 90 days whether or not anyone anywhere, such as a political party or institution or individual in any province or state, can hire a Quebec expert psychiatrist to render a medical opinion about an opponent without interviewing or even informing the individual.

The said medical opinion could be made without any medical record or clinical evaluation or verification of information, and then used publicly or otherwise for political or institutional purposes.
This happened to me, with devastating consequences.

I only found out by chance, years later, thanks to an investigation into my 2008 dismissal from the University of Ottawa, which is still in litigation.¹,²,³

I filed a complaint to the medical tribunal as soon as I could. I have publicly posted the entire complaint, the intake investigator’s conclusions, and my appeal of the said conclusions.⁴

This is what occurred, in the most neutral terms I can muster.

Dr. Louis Morissette, a psychiatrist licenced by the province of Quebec, agreed to conduct a secret medical evaluation of an individual who was critical of his employer.  The psychiatrist evidently agreed to the employer’s request that he work without informing the individual.  The psychiatrist never contacted the individual, never tried to contact him, and never even claimed that he tried to contact him.

The psychiatrist did not use any medical records whatsoever. Instead, he relied entirely on false intimate personal information provided by the employer, which he never attempted to verify, and on media reports selected by the employer.

On this basis alone, the psychiatrist wrongly labelled me a dangerous person, causing me to be exiled from my community, following his definitive recommendations to that effect.  Years later, when I found out that the psychiatrist had medically evaluated me, he refused to give me a copy of his report.
Morissette has a long documented record of evidence-based alleged and proven violations that the Collège des médecins du Québec has ignored.

These include the following that I added to my complaint, with the evidence:

• judicially proven lying while giving expert testimony in court;
• giving expert opinion in a criminal proceeding without consulting the relevant scientific research literature;
• an appellate court finding of his reprehensible behaviour;
• giving an in-court expert opinion of the harmlessness of mass-murderer Karla Homolka based on 3½ hours of interview;
• being in conflict of interest while recommending release of double-child-murderer Guy Turcotte;
• destroying his appraisal-session interview notes immediately and prior to termination of criminal legal proceedings and engaging in such disallowed practice since 1983;
• requesting double payment for the same service by claiming the same accused person both as patient and legal client;
• performing such a large amount of opinion-for-hire contracting for clients as to affect his professional independence, put him in conflict of interest, and influence the quality of his practice; and,
• exercising his profession in a jurisdiction in which he is not a certified practitioner.

After eight months, the medical tribunal’s intake analyst, Dr. Michel Jarry, summarily dismissed my entire complaint, writing that there is no cause to bother the disciplinary committee since I am not a “patient” of Morissette. This remarkable result was handed down despite the many and repeated unambiguous violations by Morissette of the statutory rules of professional ethics.

I filed an appeal on April 2, 2018, and the review committee has 90 days to make its decision about whether this sort of thing is allowed.

It must not be allowed. Otherwise, we are no better than any totalitarian regime that mines rumours and false accusations to legitimize state actions, and psychiatrists are no better than opportunists-for-hire in such a system.

It is also of note that the vice-president-governance of the University of Ottawa who coordinated the collection of hearsay about my intimate personal information, for use by the hired psychiatrist to render his secret “psychiatric opinion”, was Nathalie Des Rosiers.

Des Rosiers subsequently became Director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) for a time and is now an elected member (MPP) of the Ontario parliament and a minister in the government.

The university did not inform me of its actions, and vigorously opposed my access to the psychiatric report until the final hour of an appeal in litigation for access in 2017.⁵

1. “Academic Freedom? How Nasty Can a University Be?” by Denis Rancourt, Dissident Voice, February 17, 2018.
2. “Denis Rancourt’s letter to president Jacques Frémont, University of Ottawa”, with three attached supporting letters from Hazel Gashoka, Jean-Marie Vianney, and Cynthia McKinney, January 8, 2018.
3. “Did University of Ottawa Persecute a Professor on Its Faculty? A Petition in Support of Denis Rancourt”, March 2018.
4. “Book Of Complaint Against Psychiatrist Louis Morissette With Appeal To CdR CMQ”, by Denis Rancourt, April 2, 2018.
5. “Book: All arguments of parties and intervener in Dr. Denis Rancourt’s constitutional challenge of Section 65(6)3 of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, at judicial review, in the Divisional Court for Ontario, Court File No.: 17-DC-2279”, Ontario Civil Liberties Association, March 2018.

Denis Rancourt's letter to president Jacques Fremont of the University of Ottawa, Canada

This is about my own case of the University of Ottawa's egregious violations of my academic-freedom, civil and Charter rights, over many years. One rarely has the evidence of how far they can go.

This post is from my main blog, here: http://activistteacher.blogspot.ca/2018/02/denis-rancourts-letter-to-president.html

U of O's socially responsible lawyer, Amir Attaran: Patients killed by goverment negligence

Durham Region, 29 April 2016:
Cancer Care Ontario ‘covering up’ casualties by hiding stem cell data, critics charge


U of O's socially responsible lawyer, Amir Attaran, uncovers another distasteful institutional misbehaviour. This time, refusing to disclose how many patients are killed by bad decisions and failing to take corrective action.

" "They're covering up," said Amir Attaran, a professor in the faculties of law and medicine at University of Ottawa. "It is a cynical abuse of privacy law, to shield a callous and incompetent agency from disclosing how many Ontarians its inattention and bad management have killed. Simple as that." "

Profs sue uOttawa over executives' pay hike --Ottawa Citizen

Profs sue uOttawa over executives' pay hike

Blair Crawford, Ottawa Citizen More from Blair Crawford, Ottawa Citizen

Published on: December 17, 2015 | Last Updated: December 18, 2015 10:49 AM EST

“In its application APUO alleges that these raises are illegal under the Broader Public Sector Accountability Act, which the Ontario government passed in 2010,” the association said in a news release. “This law stipulates that compensation paid to senior administrators such as Dr. Nemer and Dr. Bradwejn ‘cannot be increased’.”

The APUO represents 1,250 full-time faculty and librarians at the University of Ottawa. It’s the first time the association has taken the university to court, Dekker said. The university was served with the papers Thursday and the application is expected to be filed in court on Monday, Dekker said.

“The university insists that faculty have to prepare for cuts to programs, teaching assistants, library services and so on — students are also paying among the highest tuition fees in the country,” she said. “So we are reasonably asking why the administrators are awarding themselves massive raises while the province has made it clear that administrators are not to receive pay increases.”

Allan Rock will fight corruption at the University of Ottawa

U of O launches a "Canadian Centre of Excellence for Anti-Corruption"::: "Allan Rock, President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ottawa, will give the opening remarks." (LINK)

In contrast, remember this? ::: "[Rock's] behaviour since the Irving affair became public has revealed him to be ethically challenged. […] it took Rock days to apologize. And he only grudgingly did so after Labour Minister Claudette Bradshaw rose in the Commons and offered an unqualified apology for accepting a ride on the Irving corporate jet three years ago. She also announced she was reimbursing the family for the flight." – Ottawa Citizen, November 8, 2003, page 1.

Corporate lawyer and Air Canada boss Calin Rovinescu named chancellor of U of O

The new chancellor Calin Rovinescu is going to fit right in... Compare: "Air Canada nearly doubles CEO Rovinescu’s pension" (Globe & Mail, April 21, 2015) and "Faculty association asks province to investigate raises given senior uOttawa administrators" (Ottawa Citizen, October 6, 2015)(and-this)(and-this).

A corporate lawyer who has made it a practice for Air Canada to disregard passenger rights and to use the courts in insisting on disregarding passenger rights will be the figurehead of the University of Ottawa: University-press-release.

Here is just one example of how Rovinescu instructs his Air Canada legal team to operate against unsuspecting travelers (Link-to-judge's-findings):

90 ... Air Canada failed to comply with an obligation that its customer service agent initially acknowledged existed, and instead acted as if some other form of compensation was appropriate for what had happened. It ignored, in other words, its own Tariff.

91 To add insult to injury it took the position that Mr Lachance was “mistaken” as to what flight he was on when he left Toronto for Vancouver. I think too I can take judicial notice of the fact that Air Canada presents itself to the public as a professional carrier which can be relied upon to provide positive travel experiences to its customers; to treat them with respect; and to honour their booked and confirmed itineraries to the extent possible. Air Canada recognized when it entered into its contract of carriage with Mr Lachance that a long and unexpected delay spent in an airport is neither a pleasant nor a happy experience, and that such a delay would cause some distress to him. (Indeed, this understanding is reflected in the fact that the compensatory damages payable under Rule 245AC increase with the length of the delay.) This then is an appropriate case for damages ...

This, in turn, is only apparent in the relatively few cases where the traveler goes all the way to a trial, and exposes the Air Canada lawyer tactics.

One more step in Allan Rock's corporatization of the institution. Shameful regression in our opinion.

OCLA Director authors blistering report about U of O's deplorable access-to-information practices

The Executive Director of the Ontario Civil Liberties Association, Joseph Hickey, has authored and published a report about the documented deplorable practices of the University of Ottawa in responding to access-to-information requests:

"Access Denied in Ontario: A Critical Examination of the Roles of the University, the Commissioner, the Legislature, and the Courts (LINK)"

"First, I present the U of O’s behaviour in response to FOI requests using data obtained from statistics reports published annually by Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner (IPC) and from publicly available adjudication decisions (“orders”) made by the IPC about the university. This is followed by a description of specific examples of tactics used by the university to deny access to information, and the impact this can have on researchers, activists, and others who seeks information from the university. The third section discusses why the U of O maintains bad FOI practices that contravene the purposes of the FIPPA. The final section considers what can be done to improve access at the U of O and in other public institutions across the province."

The report is well documented, with many records in appendix. (LINK) (PDF)

Yes! Rein in the U of O Rock administration MPP Peggy Sattler

MPP Peggy Sattler

Northumberlandview.ca reports (LINK):

Today, in Question Period NDP MPP for London West Peggy Sattler called on the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities to close loopholes and cap executive salaries at post-secondary institutions.

“[...] Now we are learning about a 50% salary increase for a University of Ottawa VP, over the two years since the public sector wage freeze took effect.  Allan Rock, the university president and former Liberal Cabinet Minister, is defending the increase, saying that it was ‘compliant’ with provincial law.” 

“Speaker, when it comes to post-secondary education, this government has no problem allowing tuition fees to skyrocket, no problem with poverty wages for teaching assistants and no problem replacing full-time jobs with contract staff. But it is not willing to hold the line on executive compensation.”

“Why is this government refusing to take real action to rein in the salaries of senior university administrators?” asked Sattler.

According to the Sunshine list, two executives at the University of Ottawa have seen their salaries balloon in less than two years. Sattler says students in Ontario pay the highest tuition in Canada and that the government needs to act now and draw a hard line on exorbitant salaries paid out to university executives.

“Speaker, Ontario university students pay the highest tuition fees in Canada, and have seen tuition more than triple over the past 20 years. Post-secondary students are among the fastest-growing group of food bank users, while student tuition dollars are being used to subsidize out-of-control executive salaries. The government talks about compensation frameworks, but what we need are hard caps that work.”

“When will the government close the loopholes, remove the wiggle room, and finally put a hard cap on salaries for senior university administrators?” Sattler asked.

Faculty association asks province to investigate raises given senior uOttawa administrators --Ottawa Citizen (media)

Faculty association asks province to investigate raises given senior uOttawa administrators (LINK)

Blair Crawford, Ottawa Citizen 

Published on: October 6, 2015

The University of Ottawa faculty association is asking the province to investigate a $132,000 raise given to a senior university vice-president, a raise that came, the association says, while the university was required by law to keep salaries frozen.

In a letter to Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities Reza Moridi, the association urges a “transparent public investigation” into the raises given to vice-president of research Dr. Mona Nemer and to Dr. Jacques Bradwejn, dean of the School of Medicine, the person who approved the raise.

Nemer’s pay jumped to $392,058 in 2014, from $259,754 in 2012 according to Ontario’s sunshine salary disclosure list, an increase of 50 per cent in two years. The association complained about the increase to the university’s board of governors this summer.

The university says $120,000 of that increase comes from four years’ worth of a $30,000 annual stipend that was paid in a lump sum to Nemer for her work as a cardiovascular scientist and is not related to work as an administrator.

“The salaries provided to our executives remain compliant with provincial law,” university president Allan Rock said in a July 13th letter to the Board of Governors. [...]

Professors' union rebukes U of O for irresponsible increases in executive salaries

Jennifer Dekker, President, APUO (professors' union)

The University of Ottawa, under the control of Allan Rock, has been exposed by its employee unions for playing an unethical "shell game" to cover up an alleged illegal and arbitrary salary increase. This is the opposite of sound public management. It is the kind of thing political parties are known for, not publicly funded service institutions.

The matter was initiated with THIS open letter, and developed as reported here:

“We don’t accept it as a valid argument,” said Jennifer Dekker, president of the APUO, which represents 1,250 employees at the university, including professors, counsellors and librarians.

“When she was originally hired as vice-president of research, one would expect that her portfolio as a researcher would have been taken into account in her terms of offer,” said Dekker. “And so to say that she’s getting an extra stipend for doing things that would normally be expected of a (vice-president of research) doesn’t make sense to us.”

The university declined requests for interviews with Nemer and the board of governors’ chair.

The Association of Part-Time Professors of the University of Ottawa, the Support Staff University of Ottawa and the Canadian Union of Public Employees local 2626 also stand behind the APUO’s position.

In a open letter published July 16, the APUO alleged that Nemer’s annual stipend was paid out in a lump sum “retroactively during a period of wage and benefit freeze” for university vice-presidents, contrary to the Strong Action for Ontario Act (Budget Measures).

“I would characterize it as a shell game,” said Dekker. “The money obviously all comes from the same source and goes to the same source.”

She said what Nemer earned last year “far exceeds” what senior university executives ought to be paid per year. And she said the extra yearly payments are troubling amid the administration’s “rhetoric” about a structural financial challenge at the university, claims the APUO disputes.

Source:

Professors' union rebukes University of Ottawa over 'redundant' pay for top exec

Adam Feibel, Ottawa Citizen

Published on: July 26, 2015 | Last Updated: July 26, 2015 6:18 PM EDT

Allan Rock is lucky to dodge this bullet, for the suspension decision was an unjust and irrational response to the known facts--National Post

FULL COMMENT
Barbara Kay, National Post
July 15, 2015

... As a case in point, you may recall that in 2014, when two players from the University of Ottawa hockey team were charged with one count of sexual assault each while partying during a trip to Thunder Bay, the whole team was suspended and the rest of their season cancelled. Twenty-four team members, who had nothing to do with the incriminating sexual incidents, are seeking a combined $6 million for damage to their reputations.

The U of Ottawa sought to have the lawsuit dismissed, but an Ontario court has just found that the suit’s claims that the school was negligent are admissible for trial, and also found the decision to suspend the hockey team was outside the university’s broad discretion to manage academic affairs.

The proposed suit would have charged U of Ottawa president Allan Rock with malfeasance in public office, but the court ruled the charge was not sustainable. Rock is lucky to dodge this bullet, for the suspension decision is down to him in the end, and it was an unjust and irrational response to the known facts surrounding the sexual incidents. ...

Use the labels below to find all related blogposts.

Alan Rock has had a long career of dodging "ethically challenged" bullets, both in parliament and on campus. See partial and not-up-to-date list HERE.

Hockey players can sue U of O, judge rules, BUT...

Hockey players can sue U of O, judge rules

Andrew Seymour, Ottawa Citizen

Published on: July 10, 2015 | Last Updated: July 10, 2015 4:29 PM EDT :

 

[...] And while Ontario Superior Court Justice Kevin Phillips agreed that the lawsuit’s claims against Rock for malfeasance in public office and that the university breached its fiduciary duty were not sustainable, he found that the player’s claims that the school was negligent should be allowed to go to trial.

Phillips also found that the decision to suspend the hockey team for the remainder of the 2013-14 season and all of the 2014-15 season was outside the university’s broad discretion to manage academic affairs and could be subject to a civil claim. [...]

In the lawsuit, Creppin alleges that the university and Rock tarnished the reputations of all the other players when it suspended the team without due process or the completion of an investigation amid sexual assault allegations.
In his decision allowing the lawsuit to proceed, Phillips found there could be room for such an argument to be made.

“The actions taken by the defendants could in their full measure be construed as acts of public discipline meted out as a consequence of an allegation of sexual assault, directed at a group of students known to be uninvolved,” wrote Phillips. “That is arguably a declaration that those to be on the receiving end of the punishment have done something deserving of it.

“Arguably the public assignment of culpability with respect to criminal wrongdoing should be left to those with the skill set and mandate for that function,” Phillips added.

While the university didn’t owe a duty of care to varsity athletes to offer a hockey program, there is a duty of care toward students who are athletes, the judge found.

However, Phillips ruled that the players’ claim that Rock acted maliciously couldn’t proceed. The players’ alleged in their statement of claim that Rock was more worried about the university’s image and fundraising efforts when he suspended the team, condemned the misconduct, and fired the coach.
“University President Allan Rock had a legitimate and complex task to perform with respect to managing the fallout from the hockey team’s road trip to Thunder Bay,” Phillips wrote. “Malice is not the only, or indeed the most reasonable, inference that can be drawn from the fact that Mr. Rock made a decision that had negative consequences to some.”

Creppin’s lawyer, Lawrence Greenspon, said they were disappointed portions of their claim were struck, but pleased the lawsuit would proceed. Greenspon said he felt the “crux and core” of their argument was reflected in the decision. [...]

BUT... This is incredible. The university simply asks that a lawsuit be struck, and a judge strikes out a claim prior to allowing discovery or evidence to be entered and tested, by simply pontificating that "Malice is not the only, or indeed the most reasonable, inference that can be drawn from the fact that Mr. Rock made a decision that had negative consequences to some."

That finding is suppose to be for the jury to decide, AFTER disclosures (discovery), witnesses, evidence, and cross-examinations, not for a judge to wave his arms in advance and decide that you can't sue Allan Rock.

The same happened with a lawsuit against Stephen Harper, HERE. Barring access to the courts for lawsuits against establishment show pieces appears to be a systemic practice.

If this occurred in North Korea we would conclude that, obviously, the courts are rigged to protect those with establishment visibility, and what a joke that the government can simply deny entry to the courts when one has a claim that is supported by publicly known facts...

When will any lawyers or their associations speak out publicly about this systemic sham? How can the judges be so shameless? How can this be occurring without public and institutional outcry?

VP-Academic Christian Detellier and VP-Research Mona Nemer may have been unfair to students -- CBC reports

Published today:
Institute of Population Health to close after uOttawa senate vote
Senate vote on Monday spells end of interdisciplinary health program
CBC News

"This is definitely a pattern of doing things behind closed doors and not fulfilling promises," PhD student Reed Beall told CBC's Ottawa Morning, pointing to a 2014 letter from the vice president of research and vice president of academic programs, assuring students they would be consulted if the decision to cancel the program came around again.

"They've gone behind our backs and gone directly to the senate with this vote today," said Beall, who Beall is one of about 40 PhD students studying topics in epidemiology and health trends at the institute. "They never consulted us and we were promised that in writing."

The VP-Academic is Christian Detellier. The VP-Research is Mona Nemer.

In a statement, the university said the school will still offer a PhD in Population Health.

Sophistry 101 -- Allan Rock on what is not an "academic program"

When lawyers run the world... It's not every day that the president of "Canada's university" overtly manufactures a novel mental construct to circumvent the statute (law) that defines the mission and governance structure of the institution.

There you have it, as reported by Student's-Eye View:

Video of Allan Rock Interview with La Rotonde

November 17, 2014

by Student's-Eye View

 

La Rotonde has posted a video (in french) of its recent interview with University of Ottawa President Allan Rock.

At 1:40 in the video, Allan Rock is asked why the university’s new Security and Policy Institute (SPI) program was not approved by the university Senate or Board of Governors.

An English translation of this segment of the video (beginning at 1:40 and ending at 3:34) is as follows (free translation):

LR: Our next question is about the Security and Policy Institute.
Rock: Yes.
LR: So, since the Board of Governors and the Senate were not consulted, we would like to know who approved the program and why there were no consultations?
Rock: Yes. Generally, when we launch a new program, whether it’s in Science, or the Faculty of Arts, or somewhere, we have a consultation and then we also have an analysis and discussions at the level of the Senate and its committees. In this case, we are talking about a program that is non-academic, in the sense that it’s not credited, it’s a program which is offered to people who are implicated in the domain, so that they can perfect their skills, in the professional sense. So, given that it’s not an academic program, we don’t need approval from the Senate and we did not initiate a consultation like we would do with an academic program. The Continuing Education Centre exists in order to give people who are already in the job market a means of improving and perfecting their professional skills — we hire people mostly from outside the university as teachers — so it’s not an academic program as such. We use the framework of the university to offer professional programs, and we also hope to generate additional revenue for the university.

Video by La Rotonde:

U of O law professor Amir Attaran calls on law society to discipline Peter MacKay

Peter MacKay Misleading Canadians By Saying Trudeau Broke Law, Professor Says (link)

"It is unprofessional for any lawyer — and reprehensible when the lawyer is also the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada — to mislead the public about the state of Parliament’s laws," Attaran wrote.

How many law professors have the guts to do that? Not many. This is the kind of independent thinking and action that can only improve the reputation of the school. Hopefully, graduates will follow the example. (Attaran's example! Not Trudeau's, not MacKay's.)

Who was U of O president Allan Rock in 2004: Defender of human rights or willing geopolitical peon?

An effigey of Allan Rock was taken in the protest rally in front of the United Nations office in Colombo against the UN ambassador.

THIS MEDIA ARTICLE from 2004 reports the view that Allan Rock played more the role of a partial geopolitical mover than the role of an independent and due diligent assessor of human rights violations, as he portrayed himself in his functions at the UN; that he acted politically rather than with predominant regard for professional ethics consistent with his position.

Related Post: The UofOWatch list regarding "ethically challenged" Allan Rock

Faculty of Ed student continues to sue U of O

April 18, 2012

Court rules students may sue universities, in some cases

Ontario Appeal Court decision could have wide repercussions.

by Judith Knelman

A recent decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal has effectively established a small, newly defined area in which universities no longer have exclusive jurisdiction in disputes with their students. Students seeking money as a remedy for consequences that impact on their academic situation will be able to use the precedent of the case of Manon Gauthier.

Ms. Gauthier was a doctoral student in education at the University of Ottawa who did not graduate because, she maintains, the university was negligent and in breach of contract in not providing her with adequate thesis supervision. >>>more>>>

New site aims to keep academics honest

In the news:

New site aims to keep academics honest 

By Todd Pettigrew | May 29th, 2012 | 3:16 pm

"Little Office" hopes to have a big impact

Photo by jurvetson on Flickr

A new website is meant to keep Canadian scholars honest when it comes to research. The Little Office of Research Integrity posts news related to research misconduct and calls for action when it notices what it sees as problems with intellectual integrity.

Woaaa. U of O president Allan Rock frantically waves off student at university senate -- video

The closing moments of the University Senate meeting of November 7, 2011, provided a frantic outburst by embattled arm-waving and finger-pointing senate-chair and president Allan Rock who refused to be transparent when asked to disclose the guest list at a "university function" that he hosted at his home while skipping out of his statutory senate responsibilities.

The University of Ottawa is a public university in Canada's capital.

Rock compares himself to student senator and administration-critic Joseph Hickey, based on his recollections of his 1970s days in student governance at the institution, but draws the important distinction that Mr. Hickey's queries are not "relevant" to senate or to student interests; "relevance" of course being defined by his administration.

Ottawa university presidents Rock and Runte make a pair

Ottawa has two universities that market themselves with grand titles:

"Canada's Capital University" (aka Carleton U)

"Canada's university" (aka U of Ottawa)

Both can now reasonably be said to be run by ethically challenged individuals.

U of O Allan Rock's media title of being "ethically challenged" is well deserved and dates back (2003) to his fishing-vacation political days (that ended his political career...): LINK. (And list of ethical breaches.)

Now Carleton U's Roseann Runte is joining the ranks of ethically challenged university presidents in Ottawa, due to revelations in a stunning bribery and extortion legal battle unfolding in the United States: LINK. (The allegations have not been proved in court, but there is unambiguous testimony from a former dean.)

How do the governance boards of these universities choose these brave public servants? Do they use Google? Are the candidates interviewed about their pasts?

MEDIA UPDATE (May 11, 2011):
Guilty verdict in U.S. trial tied to Carleton U prez
(it appears somebody lied to the court...)