Our list of recommended movies: documentaries and dramatizations of real whistleblowers and real corporate wrongdoing, and some all-too-plausible fiction. Watch the trailers, read the reviews, and in some cases, watch the complete movie online.
Short TV documentaries, interviews, presentations, and testimony to hearings.
On today's episide of CBC's Power and Politics, the FAIR website was featured and described as "the most dangerous in Ottawa".
Two well-known bloggers, David Eaves and Kady O'Malley, discuss the plight of whistleblowers with host Evan Solomon and how these stories are often overlooked by the mainstream media, leaving it to bloggers and sites like FAIR to give them prominence.
On February 17, 2010 a group of whistleblowers gathered before an invited audience in New York City to share their experiences as defenders of the public interest. Included were two legendary figures: Daniel Ellsberg and Frank Serpico: both heroes whose stories have been the subject of movies.
The discussion ranged from the extraordinary abuses that they uncovered, to the reprisals that they faced for telling the truth, their struggle for vindication, and personal reflections on what they might have done differently.
CBC Power and Politics host Rosemary Barton discusses with FAIR executive director David Hutton the $500,000 severance package given to former Integrity Commissioner Christiane Ouimet. (7 minutes)
The Insider (1999)
Jeffrey Wigand is played by Russell Crowe
An Oscar-nominated thriller about Jeffrey Wigand's struggle to expose the tobacco industry's calculated deception of the public, and to thwart the industry's attempts to intimidate, discredit and silence him.
CTV News reports on former Integrity Commissioner Christiane Ouimet's testimony to the Public Accounts committee.
In her testimony Ouimet claimed that the Auditor General's report was wrong, that she (Ouimet) had been victimized by this intense audit of her office, and that she was confident that she had always done the right thing. When questioned about her $500,000 settlement package she said that she was given a 'non-negotiable offer' and felt that she had no choice but to accept it. (2 min 30 sec)
Today, FAIR, Canadians for Accountability, Democracy Watch and the 30-member group Government Ethics Coalition are calling on all MPs with integrity to vote against the appointment of Mario Dion as the new Public Sector Integrity Commissioner.
There are many reasons to fear that Mr. Dion will prove to be an ineffective commissioner, perhaps no better than disgraced former commissioner Christiane Ouimet. Our organizations have compiled a list of ten questions that we believe must be answered before this appointment is approved, but this has not happened, and no witnesses have been called to testify.
The new public sector integrity commissioner, Mario Dion, hints that his investigations into allegations of wrongdoing in the public service will begin to produce results in coming months.
In an interview with host Evan Solomon on Power & Politics Wednesday, Dion said his office is currently investigating 35 cases, with seven of them being looked at for a second time. Some of the files are being re-examined after being dismissed by Dion's predecessor, Christiane Ouimet.
Today, Founding Director of Democracy Watch Duff Conacher, FAIR Executive Director David Hutton and Canadians for Accountability President Allan Cutler refuted a claim made by new federal Integrity Commissioner Mario Dion's on CBC TV's Power and Politics show yesterday.
Dion claimed that he did not say in a meeting last March that he would not apply for the Commissioner job while serving as Interim Commissioner because it would cause a conflict for him as he would be perceived to be trying to please Prime Minister Harper and his Cabinet in order to win the Commissioner position, and that would make whistleblowers less likely to trust him.
