Responding to the ethics watchdog's conclusion that she was inadvertently put in a conflict of interest, former immigration minister Judy Sgro says she nevertheless feels "vindicated."

Talking to reporters in Ottawa Tuesday afternoon, Sgro acknowledged federal ethics commissioner Bernard Shapiro's long-awaited report, but stood firmly behind her conduct.

"Clearly, my staff put me into a conflict, but I acted appropriately," Sgro told reporters, describing herself as feeling "completely vindicated" on questions she abused her authority helping Romanian stripper Alina Balaican.

In his report, titled "Many Shades of Grey," Shapiro says he believed Sgro did not intend to abuse her authority in a case involving Romanian stripper Alina Balaican.

The ethics watchdog concludes, however, that the minister was nevertheless thrust into a compromising ethical predicament.

Analyzing the report in Ottawa, CTV's Roger Smith said Shapiro blamed that situation on the minister's staff.

"The ethics commissioner has concluded that while Sgro didn't know that Ms. Balaican had worked on her campaign, her staff did."

Shapiro concluded Sgro's granting the young stripper temporary residence and work permits put the minister in an apparent, if not real, conflict of interest.

"But it goes further than that," Smith told CTV Newsnet, noting the report suggests staff were asking Sgro to approve residence permits for a slew of volunteers as the election campaign drew to a close.

"It says that while she didn't know what was going on, she is ultimately responsible for the actions of her staff and should have known better."

Sgro stands firm

When she faced a scrum of reporters outside the Commons on Tuesday, Sgro insisted she did everything she could to address the issues as they arose.

Staff changes, she said, and her eventual stepping down from cabinet were the right things to do.

"I don't think you can ask for more ministerial accountability than that," she said, later adding: "I feel I've taken full accountability and acted appropriately as minister in doing what I've done."

In his report, however, Shapiro cites former Sgro chief of staff Ihor Wons for singular criticism.

Although he was on a leave of absence to work on Sgro's 2004 re-election campaign, Shapiro concluded that Wons was far more involved in granting permits than he should have been.

Given that he was on an official leave of absence from the minister's office, immigration matters should have been outside his purview, the report said. As such, Shapiro suggested Wons' activity served to drag Sgro into the political quagmire.

When asked about the staff conduct that landed her in such political hot water, Sgro said she harbours no ill-will.

"I'm not going to blame them at all," she said, noting that neither she nor her staff had benefited by their apparent misconduct.

Competence Challenged

Shapiro's report comes the same day that his own job security will be tested by an all-party Commons ethics committee.

Tuesday is the earliest the committee is expected to vote on a motion served by veteran NDP MP Ed Broadbent suggesting the committee has lost confidence in the ethics watchdog.

Calls for Shapiro's resignation have been reverberating around Ottawa since late last week, when the NDP and Conservatives joined forces.

Shapiro's critics say he should not have chosen a firm with Liberal Party ties to probe claims that former immigration minister Judy Sgro was in conflicts of interest.

Led by Broadbent, critics say Shapiro was wrong to choose the law firm Borden Ladner Gervais -- which reportedly accounted for $120,000 of the probe's $170,000 budget -- for the Sgro investigation. But that's just one among many issues he has with the commissioner's work.

"From the day Mr. Shapiro hired a well-known Liberal (law) firm to do work with him on the Judy Sgro case, there has been a series of four or five very bad ... decisions that he made," Broadbent told reporters outside the Commons on Monday.

"This simply can't go on."

Last week, Conservative Deputy Leader Peter MacKay joined his opposition rival in blasting Shapiro as a "wet noodle."

Despite the harsh accusations, Shapiro has kept quiet.

"He's available but does not do any interviews on that subject," Shapiro spokesperson Micheline Rondeau-Parent said Monday.

According to Broadbent, no matter what Shapiro says, if the committee indicates it has lost confidence in him, he should resign.

Since Shapiro was named federal ethics watchdog last year, he has been asked to investigate two high-profile cases of alleged cabinet conflict-of-interest.

So far, he has only released the Sgro report.

Broadbent officially launched his campaign for Shapiro's ouster last week, after Shapiro issued an apparent about-turn on whether or not to investigate the role of the prime minister's chief of staff, Tim Murphy, in the Gurmant Grewal affair.

After flip-flopping, Shapiro announced Friday he would not be probing Murphy's conduct in alleged attempts to woo Grewal from the Conservative to the Liberal benches.

No matter how vociferous, however, calls for Shapiro's resignation may ultimately be moot.

According to parliamentary law, the ethics watchdog can only be "removed for cause by the (cabinet) on address of the House of Commons."