Blowing whistle to get easier
Critics say new rules lack safeguards for doctors
Alberta has introduced what it is touting as nation-leading whistleblower protection legislation, but critics say it still doesn’t go far enough.
Service Alberta Minister Man meet Bhullar said Tuesday the legislation is the broadest in Canada in terms of scope, but acknowledged it doesn’t provide full protection for doctors — who have previously complained of being bullied by Alberta HealthS ervices officials —or workers who care for children or seniors in privately operated facilities.
“We went further than other jurisdictions in Canada ... by enshrining in legislation the fact that we’re covering our agencies, boards and commissions, health and education institutions,” Bhullar said.
“We have gone further than the government of Canada and, quite frankly, we have set, in my opinion, a new bar for accountability and transparency.”
The bill covers government employees, but not private contractors — such as doctors — who provide services for the government.
Don Scott, associate minister of accountability, transparency and transformation, said doctors and private contractors can take concerns to a public disclosure commissioner with anonymity, but the protection against reprisals afforded to government employees would not apply.
“The key is going to be the employment relationship,” Scott said. “There are some doctors who are professional corporations; there are some who are employees. This will cover all of those who are employees.”
But Scott said the act will provide a guarantee of anonymity to any Albertan who takes concerns to the commissioner — who is to be appointed by an all-party committee and report directly to the legislature.
The new legislation — Bill 4, the Public Interest Disclosure (Whistleblower Protection) Act — requires whistleblowers to initially take their concerns to a senior official in their department who has been designated to field whistleblower concerns, but Bhullar said they can choose to go to the commissioner if they want.
Promised by Premier Alison Redford during the 2011 Progressive Conservative leadership campaign, Bill 4 provides for fines of $25,000 for first offences and $100,000 for second offences to individuals who engage in reprisals against whistleblowers, obstruct investigators, destroy records or make false statements.
Alberta Medical Association president Dr. Michael Giuffre said he’ll be taking a closer look at the legislation to determine who exactly is protected, but said the rules appear to leave out a large body of physicians — those who have a contract with AHS.
“The devil is in the details,” Giuffre said.
“If we go t hrough it line by line, does it fill in that huge gap? There would be a l ot of comfort from docs if they got it.”
Bullying and intimidation remains a “huge concern” for physicians, he added.
“There’s no doubt that physicians are advocating for some form of protection,” Giuffre said. “Especially if they’re going to advocate for their patients, they have to feel free to speak out for their patients. There’s so many examples of being stopped from doing so, or facing consequences from doing so.”
Liberal Leader Raj Sherman and MLA David Swann, both physicians who claim to have been bullied and intimidated, also lamented the bill’s lack of protection for doctors.
“I, along with many Albertans, want to see a bill with real teeth,” said Swann, who was fired from his job as a medical health officer for speaking out in favour of the Kyoto accord on climate change.
Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith said “a glaring omission” of the bill is its failure to protect the bullied doctors and nurses, school board officials and municipal councils that were the original impetus for calls for whistleblower protection.
She also wants to make sure the bill provides for “mandatory corrective action.”
“It doesn’t do a whistleblower much good to come forward raising the concern if there isn’t any opportunity to have a mandated corrective response immediately after the wrongdoing has been discovered,” she said.
Wildrose critic Heather Forsyth said the bill has to include everybody, including workers in group homes and seniors’ residences.
In the legislature, NDP MLA Deron Bilous questioned the motives of the bill, asking whether the aim was to protect whistleblowers or “to protect the government from whistleblowers.”
Alberta is the seventh province to introduce whistleblower legislation to protect government employees from reprisals for reporting violations, gross mismanagement of public funds or acts that pose a danger to the public or the environment.
Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Quebec, as well as the federal government, all have various levels of whistleblower protection.