Former civil servant Allan Cutler, who first blew the whistle on procurement practices that grew into the sponsorship scandal, will seek a Conservative nomination in the coming federal election.

The retired Public Works employee's candidacy was announced by Conservative Leader Stephen Harper at the party's weekly caucus meeting Wednesday.

If Cutler wins the Tory nomination in the riding of Ottawa South, his opponents will include Liberal incumbent David McGuinty, brother of Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty.

Cutler, 56, was a key witness in Justice John Gomery's inquiry and subsequent report into the sponsorship scandal.

He spent two decades in the federal civil service working as a procurement officer. Gomery said Cutler first became worried about the government's contracting practices in 1995.

"Even at that early date, Allan Cutler... suggested that there was bid-rigging and political interference, providing reason enough to call for an audit," Gomery wrote in his Nov. 1 report.

Cutler's boss was Chuck Guite, a key bureaucrat in the sponsorship scandal.

Cutler told a parliamentary committee in the spring of 2004 that he was pressured to move away from proper practices.

"I was no longer expected to negotiate prices with advertising firms or to insist on the established government contracting practices," Cutler testified.

When he started thinking his job might be in jeopardy, Cutler started collecting evidence he would eventually give to the parliamentary committee.

In 1996, Guite moved to get rid of Cutler, declaring him surplus. However, Cutler's union went to bat for him, getting his grievance settled by 1998.

Although Cutler found another job within the federal government, he never went higher in the ranks. He thinks his whistle-blowing cost him promotions and perhaps a higher pension.

The Paul Martin government has promised whistleblower legislation to protect civil servants who want to step forward and report wrongdoing.

Cutler retired from the government in 2004. He now does teaching and consulting in the area of government ethics.

Guite, who former public works minister David Dingwall once praised because he didn't "rat out" the preceding Tory government, is scheduled to go to trial in May 2006 on criminal charges stemming from the sponsorship scandal.