Canadian Whistleblower Laws.
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Whistleblowers:
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Whistleblowing: Breaking the Silence of the Lambs by Rosella Melanson There are people in Canada who would report something they know - health or environmental hazards, abuse, theft, corruption - if they felt protected from retaliation. But whistleblowers sometimes pay a price in Canada. In any case they don't get nominated for the Order of Canada. (Whistleblowers are usually defined as those who disclose information about something they believe to be harmful to the public's interest, occurring in business or in government. It includes disclosure to authorities within the organization, to outside agencies or to the media.) Earlier this year, an inquiry into 12 infant deaths at a Winnipeg hospital concluded that at least five of the deaths were preventable - and that whistleblower legislation would have helped protect nurses from reprisal when reporting a particular surgeon. Scientists Margaret Haydon and Shiv Chopra complained last year they were being forced to approve an unsafe growth hormone for cows. Their employer, Health Canada, protector of Canadians, imposed a gag order! A judge then ruled the scientists have a constitutional right to speak if they have concerns about public safety. Recently, Ms. Haydon spoke out again to say the Canadian ban of Brazilian beef was not based on science. Another gag order was imposed. "I was doing my job as a public servant", Ms. Haydon said when she won a Whistleblower award recently. Dr. Nancy Olivieri, senior scientist at the Hospital for Sick Children, discovered evidence suggesting a drug she was testing might be life threatening. The firm which partly funded her research told her not to publish the results; the Hospital and the University of Toronto left her ‘hung out to dry'. She eventually won. Joanna Gualtieri reported on lavish spending by Foreign Affairs personnel abroad, concerns which the Auditor General of Canada had raised years earlier. She eventually had to go on medical leave and is now trying to sue for the harassment she says she suffered; she has started a group of Ottawa whistleblowers. A government-commissioned report recently said the Department of Fisheries and Oceans "treats public criticism ... by employees as an offence akin to ... mutiny on the high seas." It is worlds away from a British government suggestion that whistleblowers be included in the British Honours system for their good corporate citizenship. The British whistleblower-protection law is said to be the most far-reaching in the world, even voiding gagging clauses in contracts. There is now a regular whistleblowers' column in the London Times Higher Education Supplement. In numerous international disasters, whistleblowers had in fact spoken out about the risks and suffered penalties for their public-spiritedness. The British law was enacted only after several inquiries into scandals revealed that employees had been too scared to report problems. Canada has had its share of similar episodes, including military scandals and cover-ups. Most Canadians are not protected from retaliation - except in New Brunswick. We are one of the few jurisdictions in North America to offer protection. Since 1989, New Brunswick's Employment Standards Act has protected employees in the public or private sector who provide information about an employer's violation of a provincial or federal law. This legal protection is as yet untested - no complaints have been filed with the government - and covers only the 75 per cent of workers who are under provincial jurisdiction, but it is still to New Brunswick's credit. The very existence of such protection for whistleblowers should be an incentive for employers to comply with laws. During the 1993 federal election, the Liberals promised to introduce whistleblower legislation in the first session of Parliament. To date, only private members' bills have been introduced, including two now under consideration. No law has been adopted. Some federal laws on business competition and health and safety and the environment do offer some narrow protection to Canadians, but only if a complaint is made to a certain authority. Of course, some laws require whistleblowing: Everyone is required by law to report suspected child abuse. As a result of a
series of scandals about covered-up manufacturing defects, Japan
- the land of righd company loyalty - is now encouraging employees
to blow the whistle when they have information of concern. One American law gives whistleblowers a percentage of the savings realized when inappropriate activity is ended by their disclosure: In its first six years of implementation, $147 million has been saved and the average whistleblower has received $400,000. American cases have included rports that a company was passing off false test results on the MX missile's guidance system. Recently, two Florida journalists who had tried to report on the dangers of Monsanto's bovine growth hormone won a $425,000 judgment, the first time journalists have won a ‘whistle-blower' case against a news organization accused of distorting the news. Movies such as The Insider and Silkwood made us marvel at the courage it took for decent persons to simply do their duty. The federal government - Health Canada actually - made a lot of hay when it used The Insider hero himself, Jeffrey Wigand, as a consultant on its dealings with tobacco companies.
Rosella Melanson is a writer residing in Moncton. Her weekly column, Subject to Debate, appears in the New Brunswick Telegraph Journal. She can be reached at rosellam@nbnet.nb.ca. copyright: Rosella Melanson First published in the New Brunswick Telegraph Journal May 2001. |
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