Police Complaints Commissioner A number of studies had been conducted on the subject of how to deal with public complaints about police conduct. At the request of then Attorney-General
Roy McMurtry, Linden conducted research on police complaints processes, including practices in other jurisdictions, and proposed a model that was adopted by the province. He was subsequently appointed first Public Complaints Commissioner for
Metropolitan Toronto and Chair of the Police Complaints Board (1981–85). This was a pilot project, combining elements of both police and civilian oversight, and by 1990 the Board's mandate was expanded to all of
Ontario.
Executive Director of Canadian Auto Workers Legal Services Plan From 1985 to 1988, Linden was Executive Director of the
Canadian Auto Workers (CAW – now
UNIFOR) Legal Services Plan, which continues to operate. This was the first plan of its kind in Canada, the result of negotiations over two years between CAW and the major auto manufacturers, and based on similar pre-paid legal service plans in the United States. Linden set up a head office and six branches, with 26 staff and 500 cooperating lawyers. Implementation problems included a dispute with the Law Society of Upper Canada (eventually resolved) over the cooperating lawyer model.
Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario In 1988, Linden was appointed the first
Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario. As an Officer of the Legislature, Linden's appointment was recommended by an all-party committee. Ontario's model unified the access-to-information and privacy-protection roles in a single commissioner, unlike the federal model with dual commissioners, and gave the commissioner order-making authority. Linden established and ran the IPC until 1990, designing the inquiry process and pioneering the use of paper as opposed to in-person hearings. Linden adopted a cautious approach in his decision-making, aware of precedents that would be set and of the need to withstand judicial scrutiny. His more than 120 formative decisions continue to be cited in IPC jurisprudence. Aside from hearing appeals, Linden issued recommendations on broader privacy and access issues, including employer disclosure of information about employees with AIDS, and the risk of document loss or improper disclosure from then-ubiquitous fax machines.
Chief Judge of the Ontario Court of Justice In 1990, Linden's tenure at the IPC was cut short when he was tapped by then Attorney-General
Ian Scott to lead the reorganization of the provincial court system. The Provincial Court (Criminal Division) and the Provincial Court (Family Division) were unified as the Ontario Court (Provincial Division), subsequently renamed the
Ontario Court of Justice, and Linden became its first Chief Judge. Linden's appointment was unusual since he was not a judge at the time of his appointment and had not practiced before the courts since 1979. But Scott felt his achievements as a reformer and administrator eminently qualified him for the file. Linden served as Chief Judge until 1999, his tenure involving many administrative and structural changes, rendered more urgent by the unprecedented
Askov decision (almost contemporaneous with his appointment), which led to thousands of criminal cases being dismissed because of unreasonable delay. Linden advocated for administrative independence for the judiciary, a topic which had been studied by various task forces and Royal Commissions. At the time, administration of the court was overseen by the Ministry of the Attorney-General. Linden's efforts in this direction led to negotiation of a memorandum of understanding between the court and the ministry, the first of its kind in Canada. The memorandum transferred financial and administrative authority from the ministry to the court by mutual agreement, ensuring the court's administrative independence and placing it on a more firm financial footing. Linden also served on the board of the National Judicial Institute, an independent, not-for-profit judicial education institution, from 1995 to 1999. In 1997, the Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice presented Linden with its Justice Medal. This award is presented biennially "as a mark of distinction and exceptional achievement to a person who, in the opinion of a panel of independent judges, has shown distinctive leadership in the administration of justice in Canada".
Chair of Legal Aid Ontario In 1999, Linden was appointed the first chair of the Board of Directors of the reconstituted
Legal Aid Ontario (LAO), chosen for his administrative expertise and knowledge of legal aid issues. Implementing recommendations of the McCamus Report of 1997, the first comprehensive analysis of Ontario's legal aid system since its inception, Linden led the transformation of LAO from a committee of the Law Society of Upper Canada into an independent, publicly funded non-profit corporation. At the conclusion of his term in 2004, the Association of Community Legal Clinics of Ontario presented Linden with the Steven Little Memorial Award for "extraordinary commitment to the community legal clinic system marked by leadership and dedication to helping others". In 2005, LAO established the Sidney B. Linden Award "to honour exceptional individuals who have demonstrated a commitment to helping low-income people, and have given their time and expertise towards ensuring access to justice in Ontario".
Commissioner for Ipperwash Inquiry In 2004, Linden was appointed Commissioner for the
Ipperwash Inquiry into the
Ipperwash Crisis, established to investigate the shooting death of aboriginal protester
Dudley George at
Ipperwash Provincial Park in 1995. Linden spent two years listening to 139 witnesses, 229 days of testimony and was presented with 23,000 documents. His four-volume Report of the Ipperwash Inquiry was 1,533 pages long. The report was well received by all parties, described by the Law Society of Upper Canada as "a landmark report on Aboriginal, police and government relations." He was also commended for handling a delicate and potentially explosive inquiry with skill and diplomacy, affording due consideration to native culture and sensitivities. Most of the report's 100 recommendations were carried out, including the return of Ipperwash Provincial Park to the first nations and the establishment of a provincial Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs. The government of Premier
Dalton McGuinty maintained that it was following Linden's recommendations in dealing with the subsequent and more chaotic native occupation in
Caledonia, Ontario, where police were accused of ignoring unlawful acts by natives and failing to protect residents from harassment and abuse. However, Professor Andrew Sancton of the
University of Western Ontario, in his review of police actions in Caledonia in light of the Ipperwash Report, notes that Linden's analysis of police-government relations "effectively repudiated the hands-off position taken by the McGuinty government concerning Caledonia", and that the government's invocation of the Ipperwash Report to defend its "hands-off" approach had no basis in the report itself.
Conflict of Interest Commissioner for Ontario From 2007 until 2019, Linden was Ontario's first and only full-time
Conflict of Interest Commissioner. The office was established by the Public Service of Ontario Act, 2006, which updated the rules for human resource management and ethics oversight (including disclosure of wrongdoing) for the Ontario Public Service, and was a specialized arms-length executive agency exclusively concerned with public service ethics. However, in May, 2019, the office ceased to exist and its functions were transferred to the
Office of the Integrity Commissioner, an independent officer of the legislature, in order to create a single ethics oversight body, a reform which Linden had long advocated. ==Honours==