Parliamentary report sees need for better protection for whistleblowers
A parliamentary committee has called for substantial changes in legislation and procedures to protect whistleblowers in Canada from retaliation after they go public with accounts of government misconduct.
The Commons committee on government operations and estimates began review of the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act in February and tabled its report Friday.
The report calls for changes in how the act is administered and to make it safer for those who see government misconduct to report the bad behaviour without suffering reprisals from the government.
Activists and whistleblowers expressed support for the committee’s recommendations.
The 120-page report calls for expanding the definitions of the terms “wrongdoing” and “reprisal,” modifying the definition of the term “protected disclosure” under the act, amending the legislation to protect and support whistleblowers and to prevent retaliation against them, reversing the burden of proof from the whistleblower to the employer in cases of reprisals, providing legal and procedural advice to public servants seeking to disclose wrongdoing or file a reprisal complaint, and legislating confidentiality provisions for witnesses’ identities.
Don Garrett, a B.C. whistleblower who was profiled in a recent Vancouver Sun story and who testified before the standing committee in March, is cautiously optimistic about the report.
“The report is very positive,” he said. “But of course I will want to wait and see how the recommendations are implemented. This could be a wonderful opportunity to set things right.”
Garrett has been involved in a lengthy fight with Corrections Canada over work he did as a contractor at B.C.’s Kent prison in early 2009. He said he was never warned that he and his workers could be exposed to asbestos and they didn’t wear protective gear as a result.
When he learned of a 2004 report that mentioned the asbestos, he went to WorkSafe B.C., and said he has since been informally blacklisted, is still fighting with Corrections over payment for the work and has lungs loaded with asbestos.
David Hutton of Ryerson University’s Centre for Free Expression has been a high-profile critic of the act and of the Public Sector Integrity Commission. He told Postmedia that “The report’s recommendations go a long way to fixing a law that has failed to protect federal whistleblowers since it was introduced 10 years ago.”
Allan Cutler, a whistleblower who helped reveal the abuses in federal granting procedures known as the “Sponsorship Scandal” in 2004, told Postmedia that one of the most important suggestions in the report was the reversal of burden of proof so that when a whistleblower claimed she or he was being punished for making revelations, the onus is on the federal employer to prove that retaliation hadn’t occurred.