Healthy Skepticism Library item: 270

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Publication type: news

Whistleblower Protection Bill Greeted with Caution
CBC News Online 2004 Mar 21

Full text:

Prime Minister Paul Martin is promising to change the way the government operates by introducing so-called whistleblower legislation in Parliament Monday.

The legislation, coming in the midst of the sponsorship scandal, aims to protect people who speak out about problems in the government.

But the Public Service Alliance of Canada, representing 150,000 government workers, is afraid the bill will fall short of what’s needed.

“The first thing the legislation needs is to have some protection for the workers against reprisals of their managers,” said union vice president John Gordon.

The union is also concerned over the process by which a whistleblower’s claim is processed, he said.

“We understand the legislation is going to have an internal process first, which is internal to the department, before any worker has access to a third party. We think that’s wrong,” Gordon said.

“We believe they should have immediate access to a third party where confidentiality could be guaranteed so that people will come forward and feel free to express issues of concern to them.”

The whistleblower legislation is part of Prime Minister Martin’s response to last month’s auditor general’s report, which uncovered widespread misspending of public funds in the now-defunct sponsorship program.