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“I like to finish whatever I start,” she said, adding she doesn’t know yet whether incoming commissioner Mario Dion appears poised to keep the Morneau file open. “If I felt strongly enough to start an investigation on something, I think it should probably be carried through, from my point of view.”

With regards to Morneau’s choice not to place his shares in a blind trust, Dawson said she stands by the advice she originally gave him — that it was not required under the law.

Dawson said she didn’t find out until quite recently she would not be given a fourth six-month extension to her mandate as ethics commissioner; that, plus the three previous short-term extensions, made it difficult for her office to plan for the long term, she said. “It just took too long. … I don’t know what happened, frankly.”

Over her decade in the job, Dawson’s hands were often tied by the legislation that govern her work (the Conflict of Interest Act and a separate code of conduct for MPs), she said. There were “lots of times” during her tenure that behaviour was technically allowed under the law but didn’t pass an ethical sniff test, Dawson said — situations where she told people, “you might’ve not done that, if you’d thought of it.”

Criticisms that she let too many politicians off scot-free were “unwarranted,” she said. “There are some activists that want to push further, but I’m following the law. … I feel that I make the proper decisions, and I feel confident in myself that I’ve done a good job.”