Allan Cutler, who became a poster boy for honest civil servants after his story of resistance to shady sponsorship ad contracts became known, beamed in the wake of the Gomery report's release on Tuesday.

"Mr. Cutler is what many Canadians would like to believe is the public service in Canada," said Conservative MP John Williams.

Williams chaired the parliamentary public accounts committee that held hearings into the sponsorship scandal, before the inquiry led by Justice John Gomery opened last year. Cutler was a key witness before it and the Gomery inquiry.

Cutler accepted such praise with grace.

"I never in my wildest dreams thought this sort of thing would happen. It's rather nice,'' he said.

"As of three years ago I'd already written this off and gotten on with life ... The public validation feels rather good. It's restored a reputation that was taken away from me.''

By the mid-1990s, Cutler had spent two decades in the federal civil service working as a procurement officer. "Public servant had a meaning then as literally a public servant," he said.

His 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 -- something that wore him down.

"It's very tough on an emotional level because it drains you," he said. "You're coming home with blinding headaches. I was on stress medication and the goal was just to get through each day."

He complained to a union official in June 1996. The next day, 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.

Fear of punishment is why problems like the water scandal at the Kashechewan First Nation in northern Ontario explode into crises, he said.

"Why did nobody come forward? There's fear. There's enough people who knew about that situation ... and nobody rectified it,'' Cutler said.

"You need (for) someone to go forward and say, 'There's a major problem'."

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 last year. 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 on criminal charges stemming from the sponsorship scandal.

With a report from CTV's David Akin and files from The Canadian Press