Ignore whistleblowers at your peril
As appalling details emerged from the Canadian Armed Forces documentation about conditions and practices at long-term-care (LTC) homes in Ontario and Quebec, one face should continue to haunt us.
Dr. Li Wenliang, an ophthalmologist in Wuhan, had followed the best practices of “ethical reporting,” also known as whistle-blowing. It encourages a hierarchy of disclosure that begins with internal communication as a first step. If the first revelation is not successful, and depending on the urgency and importance of the issue, the individual may then decide to “go public.”
On Dec. 30, Wenliang sent a personal memo to medical colleagues warning them of a suspicious illness with symptoms similar to severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). He was concerned that his co-workers wear the proper protective gear.
When his concerns eventually became public, authorities demanded that he sign a letter stating that he had made “false comments” that had “severely disturbed the social order.” After signing the statement, he became ill in early January. He was hospitalized and subsequently diagnosed with coronavirus on Jan. 30. Although there was confusion about the date of his death, the People’s Daily announced that he passed away on Feb. 7, “after all-effort rescue.”
It is heartbreaking to imagine what would have happened if Chinese officials had listened to his concerns rather than to condemn his actions. Since his death, 5.6 million people have been infected and 350,000 have died worldwide, including a disproportionate number of Canadians in LTC homes.
While our military succinctly highlighted the desperate state in the LTC homes, they were not whistleblowers, like Wenliang, as some have maintained. They were simply doing their job. However, a litany of other individuals — families, patients, judges and senators — had already sounded the alarm and over a long period of time.
In 2009, the Ontario Superior Court had handed a jail sentence of eight months to an abusive support worker in an Ottawa LTC home, after co-workers blew the whistle. That same year, the Senate issued a special study on “Canada’s Aging Population.” Lead by former Sen. Sharon Carstairs, the report called for many of the solutions now being proposed.
Yet those judicial and legislative whistles, clearly fell on deaf ears.
Eight years later, a camera became a whistleblower, when another Ottawa care worker was videoed repeatedly striking an 89-year-old patient. That incident sparked an investigation into LTC homes run by the city.
The loudest alarm was raised on July 31, 2019, by the provincial public inquiry into the Safety and Security of Residents in the LTCH system, following the murder of eight patients over a nine-year time frame by nurse Elizabeth Wettlaufer.
Judges and legislators are protected from workplace retaliation when reporting facts and studies, but historically, those who told the truth in the workplace were deemed disloyal or trouble makers.
However, over the years, a shift in thinking has occurred. Enlightened companies and countries, which are mindful of the need to eradicate corruption and uncover fraud, have realized the merit in applauding the acts of those workers who vocalize their concerns, providing the motives are irreproachable. Any disclosure cannot be for personal, discriminatory or retaliatory reasons.
This more modern approach to whistle-blowing, which should more correctly be called “ethical reporting,” seeks to uncover, rather than smother, concerns. If properly used, it is a strong governance tool.
Whether we listen to questions, investigate and act upon them is up to us and to our governments — but continuing to ignore or deny warnings, combined with a failure to act, is dangerous at any time. It is even more so as the pandemic holds us in a vicious human and economic grip for the foreseeable future. Already, there are warnings by respected international agencies about COVID-19 related activities, including fraud and cybercrime.
The problem is not so much with the person who is trying to articulate a concern. Whether we live in a dictatorship or a democracy, we typically resist negative information, which might upend the status quo.
But the cost of ignoring those who warn us is far too high. It’s not the whistleblowers who are the problem. It’s the truths that we don’t want to face. Penny Collenette is an adjunct professor of law at the University of Ottawa and was a senior director of the Prime Minister’s Office for Jean Chrétien. She is a freelance contributing columnist for the Star.