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Displaying items by tag: whistleblowing
Tuesday, 17 April 2018 08:50

New Study on Whistleblowing in Canada

Earlier this year, uOttawa’s Florian Martin-Bariteau and Véronique Newman released a study titled Whistleblowing in Canada. The study was funded by SSHRC as part of its Knowledge Synthesis program. The goal of this program is to provide an incisive overview of a particular area to synthesize key research and to identify knowledge gaps. The report they have produced does just that. Given the very timeliness of the topic (after all, the Cambridge Analytica scandal was disclosed by a whistleblower), and the relative paucity of legal research in the area, this report is particularly important.

The first part of the report provides an inventory of existing whistleblower frameworks across public and private sectors in Canada, including those linked to administrative agencies. This on its own makes a significant contribution. The authors refer to the existing legislative and policy framework as a “patchwork”. They note that the public sector framework is characterized by fairly stringent criteria that must be met to justify disclosures to authorities. At the same time, there are near universal restrictions against disclosure to the broader public. The authors note that whistleblower protection in the private sector is relatively thin, with a few exceptions in areas such as labour relations, health and environmental standards.

The second part of the report identifies policy issues and knowledge gaps. Observing that Canada lags behind its international partners in providing whistleblower protection, the authors are critical of narrow statutory definitions of whistleblowing, legal uncertainties faced by whistleblowers, and an insufficient framework for the private sector. The authors are also critical of the general lack of protection for public disclosures, noting that “internal mechanisms in government agencies are often unclear or inefficient and may fail to ensure the anonymity of the whistleblower” (at p. 5). Indeed, the authors are also critical of how existing regimes make anonymity difficult or impossible. The authors call for more research on the subject of whistleblowing, and highlight a number of important research gaps.

Among other things, the authors call for research to help draw the line between leaks, hacks and whistleblowing. This too is important given the different ways in which corporate or government wrongdoing has been exposed in recent years. There is no doubt that the issues raised in this study are important, and it is a terrific resource for those interested in the topic.

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