Our History

Read Manitoba Ombudsman: Celebrating 50 Years [PDF] for a retrospective look at the origins and evolution of our office.

A parliamentary ombudsman had first been established in 1809 in Sweden. The word “ombudsman” is Swedish and is often translated as “citizen’s representative” or “representative of the people”. After Sweden, ombudsmen were established in Finland (1919), Denmark (1954), Norway (1961) and New Zealand (1962).

Throughout the decade of the 1960s, the concept of an ombudsman to act in the public interest when citizens had grievances with government was discussed and debated in many provinces, including Manitoba.

In 1970, Manitoba became the fourth province (after Alberta, New Brunswick and Quebec) to establish an ombudsman. The Ombudsman Act created the office and set out the ombudsman’s authority to investigate complaints about administration by provincial government departments and agencies. In 1997, the ombudsman’s jurisdiction was extended to all urban and rural municipalities in Manitoba (except the City of Winnipeg), and in 2003, it was extended to the City of Winnipeg. 

The Ombudsman Act incorporates the hallmarks of all legislative ombudsmen:

• independence of the office
• broad powers of investigation
• informal procedures for conducting investigations
• non-adversarial approaches to the resolution of problems
• the power to make recommendations
• the power to report publicly

These same hallmarks are evident in subsequent laws that established the Manitoba Ombudsman as the oversight authority over provincial information privacy legislation – The Freedom of Information Act from 1988 to 1998, The Personal Health Information Act (PHIA) in 1997 and The Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA) in 1998. 

In 2007, the Public Interest Disclosure (Whistleblower Protection) Act was proclaimed. The ombudsman is one of the parties that can receive a disclosure of wrongdoing in public bodies subject to PIDA. Employees in those public bodies can also complain of reprisal that is related to seeking advising on or disclosing wrongdoing, or reprisal from participating in a wrongdoing investigation.

Manitoba’s ombudsman has additional responsibilities. Under the Fatality Inquiries Act, the chief medical examiner may direct that an inquest be held into the death of a person. Following the inquest, the judge submits a report and may recommend changes in the programs, policies and practices of government that, in his or her opinion, would reduce the likelihood of death in similar circumstances. The Manitoba Ombudsman began monitoring the implementation of inquest report recommendations in 1985.