David Rotor was fired by the Public Works Department in 2006 and will receive more than $1 million in a settlement for wrongful dismissal. (CBC)

A former federal bureaucrat wrongfully dismissed by the Public Works Department will collect more than a million dollars in lost wages and damages, the second former employee of the department to receive such a settlement.

David Rotor signed an agreement with the government last week. So far he has been awarded $700,000 for lost wages and bonuses, but he expects the amount will be well over $1 million when he gets compensated for damages and legal fees at a labour board hearing in February.

Rotor and Doug Tipple worked in Ottawa as special advisers in the department until their jobs were terminated in 2006 after erroneous media reports suggested they had misused public funds.

Rotor had been hired to reform the government's procurement system and save the department up to $2.5 billion. Tipple was a real estate expert who had plans to make more efficient use of government buildings.

Tipple received more than $1 million in damages in July when a Labour Relations Board adjudicator ruled he had been wrongfully dismissed. The initial damages are for $1.35 million, including interest, but that will expand when the legal fees are added.

Rotor spent four tense years waiting for vindication after his firing by the federal government. Now that he has his settlement he is free to tell his story.

"Those negotiations were tough. I absolutely refused to have a gag order. I did nothing wrong, and I wanted to be able to say publicly that I was done wrong by the Harper government," Rotor said Thursday.

Just months into their jobs in 2006, Rotor and Tipple became the subject of media reports in which they were accused of going on a taxpayer-funded junket to Britain. It was news that would later be revealed as incorrect and misleading, leaked to the media by a Public Works Department insider.

An internal report cleared them of any wrongdoing. But the government fired them anyway, just two weeks after the media attention began.

Now, four years later, both men have been vindicated.

"The government has been shown to have created a camouflage and sham," Rotor said.

"I was an innocent victim, and now I can move on. And, in fact, a number of positions that have kind of been on hold, and negotiations for more significant positions, have finally come to fruition, and I'm about to announce I'm going to accept a position next week, back at the level I'd been working at before," Rotor said.

No one from the Public Works Department or the minister's office was available to comment on Rotor's settlement.