That's a very good question.
I've examined the world of ombudsmen and people who come through this world, and there are two kinds of backgrounds that I would discourage. One is someone with not enough experience who would not be able to properly put things in context; it has to be somebody who has some good work experience. Conversely, I would discourage someone who has too much experience in their background. You sometimes see people who are well into retirement who become ombudsmen, and they don't have the level of wherewithal, I would think, to do this job. This is not a ceremonial job. It's a job where you have to be prepared to slug it out.
I would think your ideal candidate would have legal training, would understand the machinery of government. Being a former military or not I think cuts both ways. I've seen former military members who've been in the military for 35 years and they can never see anything wrong with anything the military does. That's a problem. To answer succinctly your point, I think somebody with experience with the machinery of government with preferably a legal background.... These jobs are full of people who raise legal pretexts as reasons why they can't do things--for instance, the Privacy Act. You've heard it here that you can't oversee an administrative tribunal, which is patently false. You've heard that testimony here. I do it in Ontario; I oversee dozens of them. So a lawyer, someone with a legal background, can spot these smokescreens and be able to navigate around them, as opposed to being intimidated by them.