The following is a chronology of events related to the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act (PSDPA) and its implementation by the Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner (PSIC) under the leadership of Mario Dion.
Dion's appointment as Public Sector Integrity Commissioner for a 7-year term was confirmed by Parliament on 14 December 2011, following two six-month terms as Interim Commissioner.
The Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act (PSDPA) was created to protect Canadians who blow the whistle on Federal government wrongdoing.
A central part of the Federal Accountability Act, the PSDPA establishes a regime for allegations of wrongdoing to be investigated, and for whistleblowers to seek protection from reprisals.
New Democrat Treasury Board critic Mathieu Ravignat (Pontiac) tabled a private member’s bill to strengthen the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act today in the House of Commons.
“Public servants who witness wrongdoings must be able to report them without fear of reprisals—whether those reprisals come from a colleague or superior, or even from the government,” said Ravignat.
In case you missed it, last week the American military reclassified Julian Assange and his whistleblowing organization Wikileaks as enemies of the United States. He’s being placed into the same box as al Qaeda terrorists and the Taliban.
Assange has been holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for months, fighting extradition to Sweden to face allegations of sexual assault.
More public-sector workers are coming forward with allegations of wrongdoing and reprisals in the workplace - which is continuing a year-over-year trend, reports the public sector integrity commissioner.
Mario Dion's annual report, tabled in the Senate last week, shows a 15-per-cent increase of reports from bureaucrats concerned someone in their office is violating the public trust or public purse.
The Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner (PSIC) is required to issue annual reports. Nearly all of the performance information is contained on one page of statistics. The charts and tables below summarize these performance data for the past five years.
More than a month after the deadline specified in the law, Ottawa has not yet announced when it will begin the process of reviewing the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act (PSDPA). This is of great concern to groups defending the rights of whistleblowers, who fear that the government may bypass the process to avoid a real discussion.
“After years of inaction and a spectacular false start, Canada is now decades behind countries like the USA, the UK and Australia. It is essential to consult with experts from these countries, which unlike Canada have considerable experience with effective laws, and have carried out excellent in-depth research” said David Hutton, executive director of Federal Accountability Initiative for Reform (FAIR).
Carol Off interviews David Hutton on the subject of Canada's federal whistleblower protection, the Conservative government's track record on this issue, and the now-overdue five-year review of the law.
Five years ago the government introduced legislation to protect public service employees should they come forward with a complaint or a claim of wrongdoing. The law was billed as the “Mount Everest” of whistleblower protection. Now the mountain is in danger of becoming a molehill.
Over the past 11 years (2002 to 2013) federal whistleblower systems have cost the taxpayer more than $45 million for very little return, mainly due to toothless laws and faulty administration.
During this time the annual costs have escalated, from about one million per year to more than eight million – for a system that has produced almost no results in spite of receiving hundreds of complaints from whistleblowers.
An analysis of the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act (PSDPA)
The Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act is a complex piece of legislation with real potential to harm whistleblowers rather than assist them. The following is a list of some of the Act’s main shortcomings, as identified by FAIR’s in-depth analysis over the past five years.
