P.E.I. Government votes down proposed whistleblower law
Opposition Leader Olive Crane spent hours Thursday trying to convince government to pass her proposed whistleblower law, but the premier and other ministers dismissed it as a ‘flawed document’ and voted it down.
Crane tabled the Public Disclosure Act in the legislature last fall. It aimed to protect bureaucrats and civil servants who reveal controversial details about government actions and decisions.
Crane said such legislation would give government employees who want to come forward with information the security of protection against losing their jobs or being harassed or blacklisted for speaking out.
On Thursday, she brought an expert on whistleblower legislation from Ottawa with her on the floor of the legislature to help champion her bill.
David Hutton is the executive director of the Federal Accountability Initiative for Reform (FAIR), a non-partisan charitable organization that promotes accountability from governments by advocating strong whistleblower policies and laws. Hutton and his organization’s lawyers reviewed Crane’s proposed legislation and pronounced it “worthy of unqualified support.”
“We are a non-partisan organization and we’ll support anyone who will put forward good legislation, and if this legislation passes then this will be by far the strongest legislation in Canada and (P.E.I.) will be well ahead of any other jurisdiction that we know of,” Hutton told reporters before the house convened Thursday.
He warned, however, that when these kinds of laws are put forward, opponents often put forward ‘apocalyptic’ predictions of what they will cause.
“(They say) that there will be a flood of embarrassing revelations about government, that government will grind to a halt because people will be afraid to do anything, employees will be so embarrassed, they’ll blackmail their bosses — none of these things has ever happened,” Hutton said.
His predictions came true later in the afternoon when Crane took her bill and Hutton to the floor of the legislature.
Government MLAs hammered them both with questions about why such a law is necessary on P.E.I.
Environment Minister Richard Brown said he believes it would make civil servants look bad and create witch-hunts against provincial employees.
“This will convince people that wrongdoing is going on in the civil service, and I can assure you, no wrongdoing is going on in the 15 years I worked there,” Brown said.
He also said the government’s current Fraud Protection and Reporting policy covers many of Crane’s concerns regarding reporting of questionable behaviour. Crane said she was not aware of this policy document.
Finance Minister Wes Sheridan, who is in charge of the provincial civil service, pointed to this and a number of other existing laws that protect employees in a variety of ways, such as the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, the Child Protection Act and the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
He said these make Crane’s bill unnecessary.
“It’s a terribly flawed piece of legislation,” Sheridan said. “What has happened very clearly already here is enabling employees to come forward in a clear and healthy way and it has provided great protection for employees across P.E.I. for many, many years.”
After two hours of debate, in which the government MLAs one by one slammed Crane’s proposed law and even began questioning Hutton’s credentials, Premier Robert Ghiz stood up and ended debate on the issue. He said he thought it was a good idea, but that Crane’s version of it was not up to par.
“We’ve looked into it, and no offence, the leader of the Opposition doesn’t have the resources that government has, we looked into it and it’s very flawed legislation in terms of legalities,” Ghiz said.
Government MLAs unanimously voted to defeat it.
But Crane said she will not give up.
“There’s other options‚ perhaps in the fall bringing back another bill. And certainly when the Progressive Conservative Party is back in government, the option will be there to have this legislation in place.”
