Tag: Whistleblower Protection

Media Update for August 30, 2010

Posted by Ian Bron

News Summary and Comment:

This week may mean back to school for kids and parents, but things in Ottawa and the provincial capitals remain mostly quiet – except for Quebec, that is.

All that’s happening in Ottawa is a brewing battle over access to the e-mails of political staffers. This little fight started with a revelation about a Tory staffer interfering in an Access to Information Act request for no good reason, which in turn further raised concerns about political interference in a process that is supposed to be independent. It isn’t, of course, and never will be until the function is entirely independent of departments and headed by an agency which doesn’t depend on the government of the day for its budget or executive appointments.

In Quebec, meanwhile, the revelations of former Justice Minister Marc Bellemare about a corrupt provincial judicial appointments process continue to heavy seas. I expect to see a lot more about this over the next few months. I also believe that it’s going to cost Jean Charest his government.

In Alberta, a new study has found toxic chemicals in river water near the oilsands. This contradicts the provincial government’s and oil companies’ line that the oilsands production is not very polluting. I follow this story because a physician and whistleblower, Dr. John O’Connor, alleged high cancer rates in the area and was put through the reprisal process. Now more evidence seems to be accumulating to suggest he was right.

Finally, there are two excellent pieces from the Montreal Gazette on the future of whistleblowing and the sad state of affairs for whistleblowers in Canada. FAIR’s David Hutton is quoted extensively.

See you Thursday.

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Fight Brewing over Access to E-mails of Political Staffers

Former Quebec Minister Gives Explosive Testimony on Judicial Appointments

On Wikileaks and Whistleblowing in Canada

Another Study Finds Toxic Chemicals near Oilsands

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Fight Brewing Over Access to E-mails of Political Staffers

Opposition undeterred by Tory refusal to hand over emails
Globe and Mail, August 29, 2010
Summary: The federal government’s refusal to give a Commons committee the e-mail records of a Conservative staff member has not deterred opposition members who say they will fight to get the documents into their hands.

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Former Quebec Minister Gives Explosive Testimony on Judicial Appointments

Le témoignage de Marc Bellemare mis à mal
La presse, August 30, 2010
Summary: Après quatre jours de pause, le procureur de la commission Bastarache, Giuseppe Battista, s’est affairé ce matin à relever les contradictions dans le témoignage dévastateur de Marc Bellemare. Il en a notamment relevé une, et de taille: alors qu’il affirme avoir reçu l’ordre dès le 2 septembre 2003 de nommer Marc Bisson juge à la Chambre criminelle de Longueuil, Marc Bellemare et son chef de cabinet oeuvraient toujours deux mois plus tard à la sélection des candidats.

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On Wikileaks and Whistleblowing in Canada

Who dares to speak…
The Gazette (Montreal), August 28, 2010
Summary: An in-depth article on whistleblowing in Canada and the uncertain and unpromising outlook for Canadian whistleblowers.

Wikileaks: Hitting ‘send’ to expose a dirty secret
The Gazette (Montreal), August 28, 2010
Summary: Faced with mounting secrecy and the failure of official channels of complaint, whistle-blowers seem to be turning increasingly to the Internet and websites pledged to expose government and corporate secrets, in the public interest.

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Another Study Finds Toxic Chemicals Near Oilsands

Oilsands increase toxic metals downstream: study
National Post, August 30, 2010
Summary: A study released on Monday shows that the oilsands industry increases the concentrations of dangerous metals, such as mercury, in locations downstream of development.

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Media Update for May 10, 2010

News Summary and Comment:

I start today with a great blog posting by a U.S. sister organization to Canadian for Accountability, the Project on Government Oversight (POGO). It tells how the U.S. Inspector General for the Department of the Interior tried to warn Congress that the department wasn’t doing its job regulating the oil industry – or doing much of anything right, in fact. One memorable quote:

“I have watched a number of high-level Interior officials leave the Department under the cloud of OIG investigations into bad judgment and misconduct. Absent criminal charges, however, they are sent off in usual fashion, with a party paying tribute to their good service; wishing them well, to spend more time with their family or seek new opportunities in the private sector. This charade does not go unnoticed by the career public servants, many of whom have been witnesses in our investigations. What are these civil servants to think? If those at the top are not held accountable, why should those at lower levels not feel empowered to challenge the call for accountability?”

Take out “OIG” and you could be talking about Transport Canada… or any number of other government agencies at the federal and provincial levels in Canada, I’d wager.

Back in Ottawa, the Interim Information Commissioner is under fire in two stories. In one, she is criticized for defending the government’s right to withhold documents pertaining to Tommy Douglas – documents that are 25+ years old. In another, she is taken to task for failing to come down on Public Works and Government Services Canada, which lied to a requester seeking information about lead contamination at an old Canadian Forces rifle range. Some say she is moving cases faster – I would agree, from personal experience – but I don’t like her defence of Robert Marleau, her predecessor, or the fact that so many investigations let bureaucrats off the hook. In the “lapdog” or “watchdog” debate, I’m starting to tip to the lapdog side. Can’t be all carrots and no sticks, Ms. Legault.

See you Thursday.

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U.S. Inspector General Tried to Warn About Problems in Oil Industry Regulator

Federal Information Commissioner Criticized

Afghan Detainee Controversy

Supreme Court Declines to Offer Blanket Protection of Media Sources

Tory MP Shory to Stay on Despite Allegations of Fraud

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U.S. Inspector General Tried to Warn About Problems in Oil Industry Regulator

IG Warned Congress About Failures of MMS, Interior
Project on Government Oversight (blog), May 10, 2010
Summary: An excellent piece on the POGO blog that describes the U.S. Inspector General’s efforts to have problems at the Minerals Management Service – which is the oversight agency of the offshore oil industry down south – addressed.

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Federal Information Commissioner Criticized

Critics wonder if information commissioner more lapdog than watchdog
Calgary Herald, May 9, 2010
Summary: Those who have dealt with secrecy in the federal government aren’t surprised that federal lawyers would fight tooth-and-nail to prevent the disclosure of decades-old records requested under the Access to Information law. What has surprised is that the secrecy is being supported by the Office of the Information Commissioner, the independent watchdog of the access law.

Public Works slow to release lead reports
Ottawa Citizen, May
Summary: Public Works bureaucrats withheld records about lead contamination at the military’s Dwyer Hill training centre in the west end of Ottawa, at first claiming to the Citizen that such documents didn’t exist.

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Afghan Detainee Controversy

Afghan police beatings commonplace, military inquiry finds
Winnipeg Free Press, May 7, 2010
Summary: Afghan authorities routinely beat people “in the street and elsewhere” and most Canadian soldiers knew about it, a military board of inquiry has found. The results of a five-week investigation, released Friday, found troops in Kandahar had lingering concerns about the local police force.

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Supreme Court Declines to Offer Blanket Protection of Media Sources

Media can’t shield sources all the time, top court rules
Ottawa Citizen, May 8, 2010
Summary: By an 8-1 margin, the Supreme Court of Canada Supreme Court of Canada concluded that the press — in a world of tweeters and bloggers — is an ill-defined group and to grant wholesale constitutional immunity ‘would blow a giant hole in law enforcement.’ The legal battle was ignited in 2001, after reporter Andrew McIntosh of the National Post received a plain brown envelope from a source. Information in that envelope led to stories that would become known as the Shawinigate affair.

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Tory MP Shory to Stay on Despite Allegations of Fraud

Harper won’t boot besieged MP Shory from caucus, says case is not like Guergis’
Winnipeg Free Press, May 6, 2010
Summary: What kind of allegation or RCMP scrutiny will get a Conservative booted from caucus? According to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, allegations of a civil or “private” nature don’t cross the line, and that’s why Alberta MP Devinder Shory is still sitting with his Tory colleagues. Shory is one of dozens of people named in a Calgary lawsuit alleging a $70-million mortgage fraud — one of the largest in Canadian history — against the Bank of Montreal.

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Media Update for April 12, 2010

News Summary and Comment:

I had been avoiding the stories about Helena Guergis until now, as I had felt that it was a story more about political hijinks and ineptitude than one of accountability. Boy, was I wrong. One minute, she’s a trusted junior Minister, the next she’s resigning and under investigation for what looks like influence peddling – based on the reports I’ve read.

To give the Prime Minister credit, every party and government has its black sheep, and he has acted firmly. But, on the other hand, he kept her in place despite the fact that her actions have reflected badly on the government for a while now. I have to say that this is an example of the hazards of trying to hide mismanagement and corruption – sooner or later, the truth will out. When it does, the story becomes the cover-up, not the initial issue. And that is toxic, because it turns individual misconduct into group misconduct.

But Ottawa isn’t the only place senior politicians are in hot water. B.C.’s Solicitor General, Kash Heed, has been forced to resign due to allegations that his campaign office violated advertising and finance rules. I liked Heed because of his hard line dealing with the RCMP after the killing of Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver Airport (he threatened to start an independent provincial police force if they didn’t deal with the problem firmly and promptly). But we’ll have to see how this turns out.

In P.E.I., the government rejected a whistleblower protection law proposed by the opposition and championed by our sister organization, FAIR. Aside from my concern that no whistleblower law can be truly effective (especially without reward systems, as in the U.S. False Claims Act), the government’s arguments appear to me to be jejune and disingenuous. Frankly, the only reasons I can see that anyone would reject whistleblower protection so flatly is that they are a) a control freak and/or b) trying to hide something.

There’s also an interesting little story about the CBC. Sylvain Lafrance, a senior executive, was nailed by an Access to Information Act request, which showed that he had billed thousands for hour-long meetings and failed to disclose almost $2600 on the CBC’s “proactive disclosure” web page. One would think that an executive at the CBC might have heard of video conferencing, but I guess it isn’t as fun or profitable. The CBC has been fighting tooth and nail to keep these kinds of record from public eyes for over a year now – and, seeing this, is it any wonder? I can hardly wait to see what else gets dug up.

See you Thursday.

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Federal Minister Helena Guergis Quits Cabinet; Under Investigation

B.C. Solicitor General Quits Following Election Financing Allegations

P.E.I. Government Rejects Whistleblower Protection

CBC Executive Expenses

More Testimony on Afghan Detainee Controversy

Improving Access to Information

Financial Regulation in Canada

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Federal Minister Helena Guergis Quits Cabinet; Under Investigation

Guergis calls allegations ‘baseless, unfounded’ as PM drops axe
Ottawa Citizen, April 9, 2010
Summary: Prime Minister Stephen Harper called in the RCMP Friday on one of his own cabinet ministers, Helena Guergis, kicking her out of cabinet and the Conservative caucus. Guergis said she’s the victim of “baseless allegations and unfounded assertions.”

Helena Guergis claims shoes, clothing, jogging outfits as campaign expenses
Calgary Herald, April 9, 2010
Summary: Embattled Status of Women Minister Helena Guergis submitted receipts for shoes, clothing and jogging gear to back up claims for personal campaign expenses from the 2008 election.

Opposition: make Guergis’ criminal allegations public
CNews, April 11, 2010
Summary: This week promises to be a tumultuous one on Parliament Hill with the opposition parties poised to strike out at the government over secret but “serious” allegations that got former Minister Helena Guergis booted from cabinet and the party Friday.

Guergis dined with financier at centre of Jaffer affair
Globe and Mail, April 12, 2010
Summary: Nazim Gillani, the Toronto investment financier who boasted that ex-MP Rahim Jaffer had opened the Prime Minister’s Office to his business, also dined last fall with then-minister Helena Guergis, a spokesman for Mr. Gillani says.

PM bounced Guergis after allegations emerged from ‘third party’
Calgary Herald, April 12, 2010
Summary: Prime Minister Stephen Harper was prompted to dump Helena Guergis from cabinet, kick her out of caucus and call in the police after a “third party” came forward with allegations about her Thursday night.

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B.C. Solicitor General Quits Following Election Financing Allegations

Election financing allegations force B.C.’s top cop to quit cabinet
Winnipeg Free Press, April 6, 2010
Summary: British Columbia’s top cop has found himself on the other side of the criminal justice system, facing an RCMP investigation that has forced him to resign from his post as solicitor general. Kash Heed, a former police chief and star Liberal candidate in the May 2009 vote, announced his resignation Friday, citing allegations that his campaign office violated advertising and finance rules in the Elections Act.

Kash Heed denies knowledge of controversial election pamphlet
Globe and Mail, April 12, 2010
Summary: Former B.C. solicitor-general Kash Heed says he didn’t know about a controversial election pamphlet at the centre of an RCMP investigation that has forced him to step down from his cabinet post.

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P.E.I. Government Rejects Whistleblower Protection

Government votes down proposed whistleblower law
Charlottetown Guardian, April 9, 2010
Summary: 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 is a ‘flawed document’ and voted it down.

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CBC Executive Expenses

Taxpayers pony up for CBC exec’s wine, trips
CNews, April 11, 2010
Summary: Taxpayers footed the bill for bottles of wine over lingering lunches and business-class trips to Paris by a top CBC executive, documents obtained under the Access to Information Act show.

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More Testimony on Afghan Detainee Controversy

Troops knew of Afghan abuse, inquiry told
Globe and Mail, April 8, 2010
Summary: A former military policeman who guarded Afghan detainees in Kandahar said Canadian soldiers accepted that Afghanistan’s jailers had sometimes abused prisoners in their care.

Canadian Forces chief investigator unaware of detainee ruling
Globe and Mail, April 12, 2010
Summary: The Canadian military’s top investigator says he was unaware of a Federal Court ruling that found there were “real and serious concerns” about the protection of Afghan detainees transferred to possible torture.

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Improving Access to Information

Fixing the access to information system in government
eaves.ca, April 8, 2010
Summary: ATIP is broken, but there are ways to make it much, much better using technology. (Blog post)

PS must embrace Web 2.0 tools: report
Ottawa Citizen, April 11, 2010
Summary: Canada’s top bureaucrat wants to retool the federal workplace and change how public servants work, where they work and even what they do. Privy Council Clerk Wayne Wouters sketched his plan for public servants facing “extraordinary times” in his first report to Prime Minister Stephen Harper since he took over the top job last summer from Kevin Lynch. It was Lynch who kicked off “public service renewal” initiative and made it a priority.

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Financial Regulation in Canada

Olive: We need better, not more, regulators
The Star (Toronto), April 11, 2010
Summary: For at least a decade, a community of well-meaning business executives and public-policy experts in Canada have been promoting an SEC for Canada. Their argument’s most compelling point, at least in their view, is that alone among major industrial nations Canada does not have a national securities watchdog. Yet no one has shown that a new national regulator would have been any more effective than the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) – the leader among the 13 provincial agencies.

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Media Update for March 25, 2010

News Summary and Comment:

In today’s media update, there seems to be a real war of words in the Rights and Democracy controversy. For those of you who haven’t been following, Rights and Democracy is a government funded agency with a mandate to fund international organizations in support of, well, rights and democracy. The agency came to public attention when president Remy Beauregard died suddenly following an acrimonious meeting with his board.

Subsequently, it came out that the board had essentially been secretly and not-so-secretly undermining Beauregard, including, for example, secret performance reviews and a (false) accusation that he met with Hamas and Hezbollah leaders.

After Beauregard’s death, three employees publicly expressed their lack of confidence in the board and were fired as a result.

The opposition parties have been all over this, claiming that the governing Tories didn’t like Beauregard’s approach and that they wanted a more pro-Israeli line in Rights and Democracy. The announcement of Gérard Latulippe, a man with connections to the Conservatives, was met with protest.

The Conservatives, on the other hand, have been either silent or have argued that the issue was one of accountability, not ideology.

This week, the much maligned board of the group came out swinging with an op-ed in the Ottawa Citizen, Senator Linda Frum supported the board in Macleans, and Macleans blogger Paul Wells rebutted. Also, Rights and Democracy board chair Aurel Braun first promised to come before Parliamentary committee – then cancelled.

While it is tempting to pin this all on political machinations, I can’t help but wonder if this isn’t just or also a case of malicious and incompetent management gotten out of control.

For me, it’s the board’s Citizen op-ed that pushes me in that direction. The piece is so self-serving, so arrogant and so disingenuous that I have to conclude that this lot care about nothing but their own self-interest. Early in the piece, they proclaim that this story “should have disappeared long ago” – as if they should be the ones who decide.

They also claim that the crisis “was self-created by staff within the organization”, pretending that they had nothing at all to do with it. Even if it were true, it would be an admission of negligence and incompetence. They’re the board. Are they saying they had no idea that staff were dissatisfied? And that they did nothing to address the problem?

“Accountability is the issue that should be the sole rallying point at Rights and Democracy. Alas, accountability seems to suit no one’s agenda except that of the board and the taxpayer,” they argue later.

Really? What of, um, rights and democracy?

These people also seem unaware of the irony of cracking down on staff who have expressed their opinions. Now don’t get me wrong – if a typical employee openly calls for his boss’ firing, he shouldn’t be surprised if he himself gets fired. But this is not a typical organization or a typical situation – it even has shades of whistleblowing. In any event, the public scrutiny would have had any sensible, thinking person wondering whether a summary firing was the best approach. But they seem to think that firing was the only option available to them. Nothing else, not some sort of conciliatory meeting, not mediation. Just firing. In the context of the situation, it looks thuggish. It also says a lot about their management methods.

This is all only worsened by the board’s statement that they welcome public hearings, and then suddenly declining to appear before Parliamentary committee.

So while there may indeed be a political dimension to this – I can’t say because I simply don’t know – I do think it safe to say that the board is composed of people who are, shall we say, ill-suited for their jobs, clumsy and destined to bring more disrepute to the organization. One just hopes that the government recognizes this and corrects the situation.

Have a good weekend.

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War of Words over Rights and Democracy

Afghan Detainee Documents Dispute Continues

Newfoundland and Labrador Health Authority Reviews

More Abuse of Freedom of Information and Privacy Laws

New Study Shows Weakness of Anonymous Whistleblowing Systems

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War of Words over Rights and Democracy

The real trouble at Rights and Democracy
Macleans, March 22, 2010
Summary: The sudden death in January of Remy Beauregard has injected an element of sorrow to the situation, but it does not alter a public body’s duty to account for public money. By January 2010, even Beauregard finally came to the conclusion that giving money to Al Haq (and like organizations) was wrong and voted to repudiate it. But the staff he left behind remain resentful of the board’s scrutiny. (Column)

Rights and Democracy: Let 100 schools of thought contend
Macleans, March 22, 2010
Summary: The current print edition of Maclean’s contains a guest column from Sen. Linda Frum, a friend of this magazine who pauses to say some nice things about me while attempting a general rebuttal of my coverage of the Rights and Democracy controversy. (Blog)

We welcome public hearings on Rights and Democracy
Ottawa Citizen, March 22, 2010
Summary: Rights and Democracy is a news story that keeps on giving. Why? It’s everyone’s favourite political football. Two recent op-eds in this paper alone presented distorted views on a story that should have disappeared long ago. As members of the board of directors, we must once again state the obvious: there is no right-wing agenda imposed on this autonomous organization; and it is not all about Israel. There is, however, an internal revolt against accountability, and there is interference and exploitation by outsiders who willingly propagate convenient fantasies for their own ends. (Op-ed)

Rights&Democracy Watch: Chairman Braun regrets…
CBC News, March 22, 2010
Summary: The last-minute cancellation of Chairman Brau’s appearance, which he had confirmed as recently as last week, comes on the very same day that an op-ed screed under his name and those of other board members appeared in newspapers across the country, calling on “Parliament to hold public hearings” into the state of affairs at the beleaguered organization, “so that facts can replace fantasies.” One can only conclude that a parliamentary committee isn’t quite what he has in mind.

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Afghan Detainee Documents Dispute Continues

New Afghan detainee documents released
CBC News, March 25, 2010
Summary: The federal government has tabled about 2,500 pages of heavily redacted documents related to the Afghan detainee controversy in the House of Commons. The presentation sparked immediate outrage from opposition MPs, who have been trying to get the Conservative government to honour a parliamentary order to release the documents pertaining to the handling of Afghan detainees without heavily blacked-out redactions.

Droits et Démocratie: deux témoins se défilent
La Presse, March 22, 2010
Summary: Deux dirigeants au coeur de la crise à Droits et Démocratie, le président par intérim, Jacques Gauthier, et le numéro 1 du conseil d’administration, Aurel Braun, ont annulé, lundi, leur comparution devant le comité des Affaires étrangères, prévue pour aujourd’hui.

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Newfoundland and Labrador Health Authority Reviews

Toxic conditions cited in Eastern Health lab review
CBC News, March 15, 2010
Summary: The lab at Newfoundland and Labrador’s largest health authority is plagued by intimidated staff, a toxic working environment and distrust between colleagues, an external review has found.

Many recommendations from botched cancer test probe already acted on
Globe and Mail, March 25, 2010
Summary: Newfoundland and Labrador Health Minister Jerome Kennedy claimed his government has acted on 39 of 60 recommendations made by an inquiry into botched breast cancer tests. He cited improvements to equipment, oversight and the introduction of apology legislation to protect caregivers who apologize for mistakes.

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More Abuse of Freedom of Information and Privacy Laws

I Avoid the Word Privacy (And You Should Too)
Information, March 2, 2010
Summary: A blog posting by Pierrot Péladeau on the definitions of privacy, and how the meaning has inadvertently – and inappropriately – been expanded in law beyond its true meaning, rendering the functioning of government more difficult. (Blog)

There was probably nothing to find in search for the truth about Liberal financial forecast
Vancouver Sun, March 25, 2010
Summary: The New Democratic Party lost no time following the last election pursuing suspicions that the B.C. Liberals had misled voters about the deteriorating state of provincial finances. The final results were not yet certified when the Opposition filed a formal request under access to information law for any and all updates to the minister of finance on provincial revenue forecasts in the months leading up to election day.

Privacy rules limit government services
Times Colonist (Victoria), March 25, 2010
Summary: The safety of victims of domestic violence is jeopardized by the lack of clear authority in B.C.’s information and privacy law for the sharing of important information, MLAs were told yesterday.

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New Study Shows Weakness of Anonymous Whistleblowing Systems

Anonymous Whistle-Blowing Systems Are Often Dysfunctional
Newswise, March 25, 2010
Summary: Landmark regulations designed to detect and deter financial fraud via anonymous whistle-blowers can be dysfunctional and ineffective, according to new research from the University of Hampshire.

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Media Update for March 22, 2010

News Summary and Comment:

This Monday, as many in the past, the document dispute in the Afghan detainee controversy continues to dominate accountability news. Where things stand now is that the federal government has hired retired justice Frank Iacobucci to review documents which it claims are too sensitive to release unedited to Parliamentarians. The Opposition, meanwhile, is having none of that: it wants to see the documents now, not at some undefined point in the future, and it’s threatening to put several Ministers in contempt of Parliament if it doesn’t get its way.

Someone has now proposed that a limited number of Parliamentarians with security clearances review the documents. Several experts have endorsed this approach.

The agency Rights and Democracy is also still in the news as the Conservatives are attempting to block the widow of the late President Remy Beauregard from testifying in Parliamentary committee, claiming, essentially that it would be too emotionally charged. They also want to block the testimony of some employees who were fired for their dissidence. Hmm. Not very transparent.

Expenses of MPs and top bureaucrats are coming under closer scrutiny. Or rather, the lack of scrutiny is coming under scrutiny. The Halifax Chronicle-Herald, following up on its extensive coverage of Nova Scotia’s recent MLA expenses scandal, ran a long piece on MP expenses being immune from outside audit and reported some self-serving justifications and disingenuousness on the part of MPs. Meanwhile, the Hill Times reports that a certain Drew McPherson has developed a website that compiles ministers’ and bureaucrats’ travel and hospitality expenses. Great work, Drew – I tip my hat to you. Now all we need is for someone to do an audit of reported versus unreported expenses…

On to Chander Grover. You remember him, don’t you? Well, you can be forgiven if you don’t. Chander was run out of the National Research Council some 23 years ago. He has won multiple rulings in tribunals and courts since then, but the NRC continues to stonewall. Why? Because it’s not their money they’re spending to defend the indefensible – it’s yours, so the joke’s on you. In any event, the South Asia Mail ran a number of pieces on him this week.

Three international stories show the importance of whistleblowers, and how they are still being persecuted even where laws exist to protect them. The first involves a study about to be reported in the The Journal of Finance that shows that whistleblowers are the biggest source of information on corporate malfeasance in the U.S. (about 17%), followed closely by short-sellers and stock analysts. In contrast, the Securities and Exchange Commission – the regulatory authority – only accounted for 6% of cases. This, I think, is the result of bureaucratic incompetence and the willingness of regulators to trust people who appear to be respected authority figures. That is, they’re easy dupes.

Two other cases provide evidence. In one, a letter has surfaced showing that a whistleblower tried to stop the abuses and chicanery that led to the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings – the largest corporate collapse in U.S. (and probably world) history. His reward? A summary firing. Meanwhile, in the U.K., The Guardian reports that whistleblowers are still being hammered by employers for reporting wrongdoing 10 years after passing laws intended to protect them

Here in Canada, where we lag both countries in both attitudes and laws regarding whistleblowers, I just wish we had some party would take this up as an issue. Sigh.

See you Thursday.

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Afghan Detainee Documents Dispute Continues

Rights and Democracy under Scrutiny in Parliamentary Committee

Calls for Closer Scrutiny of MP Expenses

The South Asia Mail Denounces Treatment of Former NRC Scientist Chander Grover

Efforts to Keep Tommy Douglas File From Public Criticized

Study – and Stories – Show that Regulators Much Less Effective than Whistleblowers

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Afghan Detainee Documents Dispute Continues

Opposition threatens contempt motion over Afghan torture documents
The Star (Toronto), March 18, 2010
Summary: The opening volley was fired Thursday over what could become a protracted constitutional war over Parliament’s right to know versus the government’s right to keep secrets. Fed up with months of government foot-dragging on their demand for uncensored documents related to the alleged torture of Afghan detainees, opposition MPs sought a formal ruling from the Speaker of the House of Commons that their parliamentary privileges have been breached.

Farewell, soon-to-be-former Deputy Attorney General John H. Sims
CBCNews, March 19, 2010
Summary: Yes, according to the Department of Justice, earlier this week, Deputy Minister John H. Sims — a three-plus-decade veteran of the civil service — gave notice, via widely-distributed letter, that he would be leaving his post, effective April 1. The news apparently provoked mild-to-middling surprise on the mandarin circuit, since generally speaking, the imminent departure of such a senior official would have been telegraphed months in advance, and not announced in a brief note just two weeks before his last day on the job. The timing is especially curious given how deeply enmeshed in the Afghan detainee controversy his soon to be former department has become, particularly given yesterday’s Questions of Privilege. (Blog posting)

Security-cleared parliamentary panel could review Afghan detainee documents: experts
Winnipeg Free Press, March 21, 2010
Summary: Setting up a special committee of senior parliamentarians to examine sensitive documents about Afghan detainees could help defuse a brewing political crisis over access to the information, intelligence experts say.

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Rights and Democracy under Scrutiny in Parliamentary Committee

Tories aim to block testimony from widow of rights group head
The Star (Toronto), March 18, 2010
Summary: Conservative MPs are thwarting the grieving widow of former Rights and Democracy president Remy Beauregard from testifying at a Commons committee. Suzanne Trepanier has requested permission to appear at the Foreign Affairs committee to defend her husband’s record and provide her version of events that she believes contributed to Beauregard’s fatal heart attack in January following an agency board meeting.

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Calls for Closer Scrutiny of MP Expenses

State secrets
The Chronicle-Herald (Halifax), March 22, 2010
Summary: The expense spending of federal MPs has never been subjected to the same kind of audit that uncovered abuses in Nova Scotia and other legislatures, and although MPs from all parties say rules are tighter in Ottawa, they also refuse to open the books to auditor general Sheila Fraser to confirm that there is no waste.

A new website compiles ministers’ and top bureaucrats’ travel and hospitality disclosures, neatly
The Hill Times (Ottawa), March 22, 2010
Summary: When 33-year-old web developer Drew Mcpherson waited in a Halifax doctor’s office in 2007, reading a Maclean’s magazine article headlined, “Your tax dollars at work,” on proactive disclosure in the post-George Radwanski bureaucracy and how senior officials were still spending lavishly, he decided to do something about it. (Note: available to subscribers only)

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The South Asia Mail Denounces Treatment of Former NRC Scientist Chander Grover

State-sponsored Racial Discrimination in Canada: Racial Discrimination of Dr. Grover by the NRC
The South Asia Mail, March 22, 2010
Summary: Dr. Chander P. Grover, a Canadian citizen of South Asian descent, has been the victim of “state sponsored” racial discrimination for 23 years orchestrated by his employer, the National Research Council with the backing of several Central Agencies of the Government of Canada.

An eloquent example of racial discrimination in Canada
The South Asia Mail, March 22, 2010
Summary: Racial discrimination is very much alive in Canada. It is highly prevalent in the federal public service.

Dr. Grover: Where does the truth lie?
The South Asia Mail, March 22, 2010
Summary: The case of Dr. Chander P. Grover against the National Research Council (NRC) and his twenty-two year ordeal for racial equality has been narrated on many occasions and well chronicled in court proceedings, in Parliament Hansards, in academic studies in law and in the media. As we have just observed March 21, the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, I ask our honourable Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, to restore moral integrity and in the interests of the public and the nation, to end this shameful travesty of justice. (Editorial)

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Efforts to Keep Tommy Douglas File From Public Criticized

Is bid to hide Tommy Douglas’s file insidious or just silly?
The Vancouver Sun, March 19, 2010
Summary: The idea that the disclosure of people and tactics used 40 to 60 years ago or more will threaten continuing business suggests that CSIS is still using methods that, if exposed, would offend not only public sensibilities but perhaps even the law. Given the trust we must have in CSIS, that suspicion is intolerable. (Column)

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Study – and Stories – Show that Regulators Much Less Effective than Whistleblowers

Whistle-blowers find more corporate fraud than regulators, study finds
The Dallas Morning News, March 22, 2010
Summary: I bet cunning corporate pooh-bahs who have stolen from a company, ripped off shareholders or bilked the government fear most a visit from a Securities and Exchange Commission regulator. If so, their worries may be misplaced. The SEC surprisingly is just a minor player on the fraud-busting front. Chances are, any corporate shenanigans coming to light will be from a trusted aide or embittered employee- turned-whistle-blower.

Whistleblower in Lehman Brothers was Ignored before Collapse

Letter: Lehman Accounting Tricks Possibly Illegal
ABC News, March 18, 2010
Summary: A Lehman Brothers whistleblower warned his bosses that accounting gimmicks the bank used before its collapse may have been illegal, his lawyer said Friday. Matthew Lee, a former Lehman senior vice president, was fired days after questioning the accounting tricks in a letter to his superiors, attorney Erwin Shustak said. Shustak gave a copy of the letter to The Associated Press. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. imploded in September 2008, becoming the biggest corporate bankruptcy in U.S. history.

The Lehman Whistleblower’s Letter
The Wall Street Journal, March 19, 2010
Summary: Here is the letter that placed the little-known Lehman executive at the center of allegations that Lehman manipulated its numbers and misled investors. (Blog posting)

Report in UK Shows Reprisals Still Common 10 Years After Whistleblower Protection Law Passed

Tenfold rise in whistleblower cases taken to tribunal
The Guardian (Manchester), March 22, 2010
Summary: The number of employees claiming to have been sacked, mistreated or bullied for exposing corrupt practices at work has increased tenfold over the last decade, according to official figures. The figures, compiled for the first time, will increase fears among campaigners that whistleblowers are being deliberately undermined or removed from their workplace, despite repeated promises to protect them. The information was collated by the charity Public Concern at Work in a report into 10 years of whistleblower protection.

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by Ian Bron on March 22, 2010
filed in Media Updates
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A Question of Culture

In my last article, I looked at how whistleblowers are created by bad management — not just in the sense of allowing problems to exist, but by reacting badly to the whistleblowing, which convinces the whistleblower that he or she is right. This escalates the confrontation. It’s a problem in Canadian governments — provincial and federal — because they’re bureaucratic and rigidly hierarchical, and because the culture doesn’t support dissent.

Today my question is: has federal government management and culture changed since the Federal Accountability Act of 2006? And what about provincial governments?

Government is a huge beast, so it’s dangerous to make generalizations. But I think that it’s safe to say that bureaucracies are resistant to change. Risk-taking is discouraged because of, well, the risks. As to the structure, every government in Canada is hierarchical. Hierarchies made up of people who rose through the ranks of the public service by demonstrating their loyalty to the prevailing culture and ethos. After all, how else could merit be demonstrated? Government isn’t a business, no matter what management pundits might try to claim. There is no product that comes out of the machine, to be delivered to a consumer. It can’t go bankrupt.

To illustrate, Canadians may not realize that executive performance in government is measured using standards set by the people being measured. Success is generally assured, as demonstrated by the fact that over 95% of executives in the federal government receive performance bonus each year. Given decades of research in the field that shows management quality follows a bell curve, that figure is absurd.

How this is done has not changed since 2006, in either the federal or provincial public services.

As for culture, it’s rarely law that causes change. Take drunk driving: it was illegal for decades before a major cultural shift in the 1980s made it socially unacceptable.

With this in mind, remember that the current batch of senior bureaucrats are mainly baby boomers. They came of age when rigid hierarchies and more autocratic leadership methods were the norm, before the spreading of situational or participative leadership methods. They went to school when corporal punishment in schools was accepted.

But it doesn’t stop with management. Even many staff don’t like whistleblowers. Most bureaucrats believe that they must be loyal to their superiors, no matter how obvious the incompetence or misconduct. Some stay in line out of fear, some because they don’t want to be associated with a rebel. Some want to be a team player, no matter how bad the team. Some dislike whistleblowers on principal. They don’t see the purpose. Work internally for positive change, goes the mantra. Unfortunately, that rarely works.

And then there are the practical issues. In the Canadian government, deputy ministers (or the equivalent) handle the administration of the department. Correspondence rarely actually reaches him or her — staffers simply direct it into the bureaucracy. In this way, it usually ends up in the hands of the people implicated, who usually and predictably embark on a witch hunt.

Again, this has not changed in the federal government since 2006. Managers are still hired the same way, using the same tests and criteria.

In provincial governments, there wasn’t even the FAA or a Sponsorship Scandal to encourage change.

None of this bodes well for the whistleblower. The evidence doesn’t look good, either. Look at the listeriosis outbreak of 2008. Luc Pomeleau, an inspector at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, raised the alarm about the dangers of cutting inspections — and was fired for doing so. Six weeks later, people started dying.

Then, last November, Richard Colvin spoke to Parliamentary Committee about how he had tried to warn senior government officials the abuse and torture of Afghan prisoners being transferred to Afghan authorities. He was publicly ridiculed, with officials stopping just short of calling him a liar.

Meanwhile, the new Public Service Integrity Officer has only caught one corrupt official in her three years in office. In her annual reports, she explains this failure to perform as the result of her efforts to focus on “prevention”. No wonder public servants are calling her office a cruel joke.

And what happens to officials implicated? Nothing. Even in the Sponsorship Scandal, only Chuck Guité faced any sanction. Nobody who helped him suffered any penalty. They just moved on to bigger and better things.

At the provincial level, there were at least a few firings when the eHealth Ontario scandal broke, along with the resignation of the Deputy Minister of Health. In Quebec, it looks less promising: the recent construction industry corruption scandal has led to calls for an inquiry. But Premier Charest is having none of that, and I think it has a lot to do with widespread culpability at the political level. Culpability, I suspect, that would ensnare members of all parties.

Nova Scotia had one MLA resign as a result of the expense scandal that has been unwinding – but when it comes to apologies, the silence is deafening.

So do I think the culture of government has changed, or is capable of changing as things stand?

No.

The culture of entitlement — entitlement without accountability – still prevails. Whistleblowers remain unprotected, and oversight is week.

This should have Canadians up in arms, but it doesn’t. Perhaps it’s because we’re too complacent. Perhaps we’re too cynical. Perhaps we like it this way.

Whatever it is, I think it’s only a matter of time before we have another scandal, or outbreak, or plane crash.

Perhaps then Canadians will sit up.

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by Ian Bron on March 13, 2010
filed in Whistlebowing and Culture
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