Government Operations Committee on March 21st, 2017

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Colleagues, it being 8:45, we'll commence the meeting. Welcome, all.

Two of our guests today are appearing via video conference. We have Mr. John Devitt, who is the chief executive of Transparency International Ireland, coming to us via video conference from Dublin. We will also be joined by Mr. Tom Devine later this morning. He informed us that he would be a few moments late, but once he appears we will get his testimony as well. In person, we have Ms. Joanna Gualtieri from The Integrity Principle.

Colleagues, we have one hour for these three witnesses. I understand that all three have brief opening statements of approximately 10 minutes each. That will leave approximately 30 minutes for testimony and answers, which means that we'll have one seven-minute round of questions from our committee members, and then we'll move on to our second panel.

Mr. Devitt, we'll start with your opening statement.

[John Devitt, Chief Executive, Transparency International Ireland, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's a great pleasure to present to the committee, and a great honour as well. I'm more than happy to assist the committee in its deliberations around reform of Canadian whistle-blower protections. I'll talk to you briefly about how the Protected Disclosures Act in Ireland came about and about key features of the act and some of our observations around potential impacts of the legislation here in Ireland.

By way of background, I'm chief executive of Transparency International in Ireland. We have been working on whistle-blower protection for about 10 years now. We launched Ireland's first and only free phone helpline for whistle-blowers in 2011, and we have assisted around 900 people so far. We also assisted the Irish government in drafting the Protected Disclosures Act in 2014. We provide advice to the Council of Europe, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and other agencies, and we have been offering assistance to other governments in their deliberations around whistle-blower protection.

We started exploring this issue in some depth back in 2009, and we published an assessment of legislation in Ireland. Up until 2014 there were around 18 pieces of legislation on the statute books governing how individuals should report a concern and the kinds of protections they would be afforded were they to make a disclosure. We found that whistle-blowers were afforded varying degrees of protections, depending on where they worked and the type of wrongdoing they were reporting. One could report a breach of the Pensions Act or the Chemicals Act or the Communications Regulation Act, but up until 2013, if you worked in a bank you weren't afforded the opportunity to report or to report with the knowledge that if you did suffer reprisal, informal or formal, you would have any rights to seek redress.

It wasn't really until the collapse of the Irish banking sector in 2008 that the Irish government took the issue of whistle-blowing seriously. Transparency International had been campaigning for some time. In 2010 we published a report, which led to a degree of consensus across party lines on the need for stronger whistle-blower protection. We had been campaigning for a piece of legislation similar to that which has been on the statute books in the United Kingdom since 1999, which would afford whistle-blowers protection irrespective of the type of wrongdoing they were reporting or where they worked. We campaigned for what became the Protected Disclosures Act in 2014.

The act draws from best practices in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, South Africa, and elsewhere. It focuses on workplace whistle-blowing. It applies to all sectors of the economy. It protects anyone so long as they have a reason to believe what they are reporting is true. False disclosures are not protected, or shall I say, false disclosures in which the individual is found to have known they were false are not protected. Someone can avail themselves of the protections so long as they can show that they had a reason to believe what they were reporting was true, even if it transpires that the information they shared was misleading or false.

Past disclosures are also protected, so any disclosures of information related to wrongdoing made prior to 2014 are protected. One unique feature of this legislation is the fact that it was the first to remove the requirement to demonstrate good faith, so the motivation of a whistle-blower is irrelevant.

There is, furthermore, no public interest tests in the legislation. All one has to do is show that one had reason to believe that the type of wrongdoing that is categorized in the legislation was taking place or was likely to be taking place.

All workers are protected, with the exception of volunteers, which is something we would like to see addressed in a forthcoming review of the legislation here. Contractors, agency workers and trainees, and interns working in hospitals are protected. All one has to do is also show that the information one is sharing is relevant. Relevant information is defined clearly in the legislation, and it's related to a type of wrongdoing described in the law.

The information also has to be information that has come to the whistle-blower or the worker in connection with their employment. Again, so long as they have a reason to believe that the information is true, they are protected.

The type of wrongdoing covered is similar to the wrongdoing categorized in the Public Interest Disclosure Act in the United Kingdom. It includes offences; breaches of legal obligation; miscarriage of justice; health and safety issues; damage to the environment; unlawful or improper use of public body funds; oppression, discrimination, or gross negligence by a public body; and concealment of information in relation to any of the types of wrongdoing above.

Workers are protected from unfair dismissal and penalization. That might include bullying. It might include relocation, informal sanctions, ostracization at work. There is a burden placed on the employer to prevent a worker from being bullied or from suffering any harm or detriment arising from a protected disclosure.

Also, uniquely, the Irish legislation provides the right of tort, so an individual can seek redress through the courts where they believe they have suffered harm as a consequence of making a protected disclosure. In addition, an individual has a right to take action against anyone who causes them harm where a disclosure or a protected disclosure has been made by somebody else, such as a family member or a colleague, and they themselves suffer as a consequence of that disclosure. For example, they might be suspected of having made a protected disclosure, but although they were not the person who made the disclosure, they suffer nonetheless. Whistle-blowers are also granted civil and criminal immunity for making a protected disclosure, and their identity is protected from being released without just cause.

Also, the law provides for interim relief for whistle-blowers. Within 21 days of receiving notice that they might be dismissed and they believe their dismissal is a direct consequence of having made a protected disclosure, they can seek redress through the lower courts. The lower courts can prevent their employer from dismissing them and can instruct the employer to reinstate them and keep them on the payroll until such time as their case has been brought before the employment courts, the workplace rights commission.

Employers have an obligation not to dismiss people making protected disclosures, not to penalize or harm them or allow others to do so. Again, they have an obligation to protect the identity of whistle-blowers. They also cannot contract out of their obligations, so they cannot write guiding clauses into contracts or post-employment agreements into settlements. Public employers must have protections or procedures in place. Each public body has to have policy and procedures in place, and must also report to the relevant government departments on the number of cases brought to their attention and the actions taken.

In addition, a whistle-blower can report to their own employer; to the relevant minister, if they're working within the public body; or to a legal adviser. All they have to do in such cases is show they have a reason to believe wrongdoing is taking place. If they have confidence that their employer is taking or will take their concern seriously or they have reason to believe that the information they're disclosing is substantially true, there's substance to their allegations, they can report to the prescribed body, which is generally speaking a regulator responsible for a particular body.

If in the event that they don't have confidence in their employer or the prescribed body, they believe their concern might lead to reprisal, where they can show that they're not personally benefiting or profiting from the disclosure, and other circumstances or conditions are met for the concerns being raised, and it's believed to be reasonable in all circumstances, they can report to a journalist or a member of Parliament.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Mr. Devitt, unfortunately I'm going to have to cut you off there. We're well over the 10 minutes we've allocated for opening statements, and we do want to have an opportunity for our colleagues at the committee to ask questions. I'm sure that much of the information you may not have gotten to will come forward during the question and answer period. I apologize for the interruption.

Mr. Devine, I understand that you are with us now from Washington?

[Tom Devine, Legal Director, Government Accountability Project, As an Individual]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

We will get to your testimony immediately. We're asking for an opening statement of 10 minutes or fewer. That will be followed by another presentation here in Ottawa, and that will be followed by questions from our committee members.

If you're ready with your opening statement, the floor is yours.

[Tom Devine]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

It's an honour to be participating today. Whistle-blower protection is really riding the wave of a global legal revolution. Thirty-five nations and six intergovernmental organizations, including the UN, the OAS, and the World Bank now have whistle-blower protection policies. In 1989 there was only one, the United States. GAP has had to draft or enact 33 U.S. or global whistle-blower policies or laws helping 8,000 whistle-blowers since 1977, so we're speaking from a base of experience.

Our primary lesson learned is that weak rights are counterproductive. They increase the chilling effect and associated secrecy when the rights on paper do not reflect reality in practice. As a result, organizations like the Council of Europe, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and groups like ours have developed best practices that distinguish effective whistler-blower laws, which are nicknamed “metal shields”, from ineffective laws or “cardboard shields”. If you go into battle with a metal shield, it's dangerous but you have a fighting chance to survive. If you go into battle with a cardboard shield, you're going to die.

Unfortunately, Canada's law is a paper shield, the global lowest common denominator. Its rights are not even in the same league as those of African nations like Zambia or Ghana or former communist nations like Serbia. Using 20 evaluation consensus criteria, the act only passes one and a half, or has about a 15% score. Let's consider why.

The first criteria is the context for free expression rights with no loopholes. Arbitrary loopholes that are based on formality, context, time, and audience dilute the law's potential for accountability. They are stopping up the free flow of information for accountability, and they also create confusion and uncertainty when it's safe to speak out, which causes an associated chilling effect. This law does not protect disclosures to co-workers, which are necessary for the homework to make responsible disclosures, to law enforcement, to Parliament, to the public, or to the media, except in token circumstances.

The second criteria that I consider—and I consider a dozen of the 20 that are most fundamental—is subject matter for free speech rights with no loopholes. It's a given that the whistle-blower law must be protecting disclosures of any misconduct that betrays the public trust. The act does not cover the catch-all category for whistle-blower laws or any anti-corruption laws, or abuse of authority that betrays the public, although it may not be technically illegal. It does not even cover Treasury Board regulations that are significant for procurement.

A third criteria is protection against spillover retaliation. It takes a village of supporting witnesses, expert second opinions, and peer review for an effective, responsible whistle-blowing disclosure. This law does not protect those who assist or who are associated with, and are mistakenly perceived to be whistle-blowers.

Let's go to some criteria very significant for infrastructure. One of those is shielding whistle-blowers from gag orders. Any effective law must override, cancel out, any prior or future rules that contradict or override its free speech rights. They can only be modified by amending the whistle-blower law itself, but this law only protects against parliamentary restraints. Agency gag orders can cancel the national statutes through internal controls. Settlement gag orders are free to lack in secrecy that conceals illegality of public health and safety threats, which is unacceptable for a transparency law.

Let's go to the heart of this act, which is essential support services for paper rights through providing relief through informal investigations, in this case, the PSIC. This is very important so that there's a legitimate channel for closure as an alternative to due process proceedings that many unemployed whistle-blowers can't afford.

But in this act, with the PSIC and its commissioner, whistle-blowers have a toothless investigative agency that cannot even demand evidence of retaliation, that has a blank cheque not to “deal with” complainants' cases or their rights, that has immunity for its actions, and that operates in total secrecy. This is to enforce a transparency law.

Let's go to the next criterion, the right to a genuine day in court. That's the foundation for any credible legal right: the due process right to present evidence and confront accusers in courts reserved for society's highest-stakes issues. This is a whistle-blower law. Under this law, there is no right to any day in court. The PSIC commissioner has to file the lawsuits for the commissioners and hasn't argued a case in court for over a decade.

There shouldn't be any confusion. The lack of due process is the primary reason this act is not legitimate. The rights in the law will not be credible until whistle-blowers have the due process right to defend themselves. In fact, the law even cut out previously available court access, making itself the exclusive remedy.

The final criterion for an effective infrastructure is realistic legal standards to prove violations of rights. These are among the law's most significant features. They set the merits rules of the game for how much evidence is needed to deserve protection and for how much is necessary for each side to win.

On the merits test for protection, the global consensus is the “reasonable belief” test. This is the objective test that information is credible for another person with similar knowledge or experience. Significantly, the whistle-blower can be mistaken, although no law protects knowingly false disclosures.

However, this act uses the outmoded “good faith” standard. That has been discarded, because, first, it's subjective, which creates an inherent chilling effect, and second, because in many cases it led to putting the whistle-blower's motives for disclosing misconduct on trial even more than the alleged misconduct itself. While motives are relevant for credibility of evidence, they're totally irrelevant for deciding whether disclosing information should be protected. The point of whistle-blower laws is to maximize the free flow of information from all witnesses who could help the public and not to make moral judgments about why someone exposed misconduct.

The other part of legal standards is burdens of proof. Nearly all modern whistle-blower laws also have a two-part reverse burden of proof. The whistle-blower's burden is to prove a connection between protected activity and the damaging action, that the action was taken at least for partially illegal reasons. When that occurs, the burden of proof reverses to the employer to prove that it acted for lawful reasons independent of freedom of speech. This two-part reverse burden of proof is standard in almost all modern whistle-blower laws.

Canada's act has no burdens of proof. My understanding from talking with NGOs here is that in practice the burden is entirely on the whistle-blower. This hopelessly stacks the deck.

But once we get out of infrastructure, you have to have a realistic time frame to act on rights. It can take a lengthy campaign to find a good lawyer and gather evidence to file a winning lawsuit, and with a short statute of limitations, employees may not even know that they have rights before it's too late to act on them. Six months is the minimum. This act gives 60 days.

What's the bottom line for any whistle-blower law? It is relief for those who win, and unless there is a “make whole” commitment in the law to compensate whistle-blowers for all the direct and indirect damage from retaliation, they will still lose by winning, and the law will make the chilling effect worse. This has to also include the cost of litigation, such as the cost of hiring an attorney so that you have a chance to fight your case. This act does not include the “make whole” principle, and it has only token, dormant provisions for attorney fees.

Now let's go to preventing retaliation, personal accountability for retaliation. Without it, through liability—

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Mr. Devine, I'm sorry to interrupt. We're over time already, so I'm going to have to get you to wrap up very quickly, if possible.

[Tom Devine]

Thank you, sir.

Without disciplinary accountability, there is no deterrent value to the law. There has been no discipline in over a decade with this law, or credible corrective action, which is the primary cause for a chilling effect, even more so than fear of retaliation. There has been no significant corrective action in over a decade with this law.

Folks, thanks for inviting me. The Government Accountability Project applauds your rolling up for your sleeves for some very hard work, and you have our commitment that we will share any of our expertise and experience in helping you to accomplish that task.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much, sir. We appreciate your offer of assistance.

Finally, here in Ottawa, we have Madam Gualtieri, with an opening statement, please.

[Joanna Gualtieri, Director, The Integrity Principle, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all members of the committee.

It is a great privilege to participate in what I believe is a critical and essential function, and that is to restore trust in our public service by locking in legitimate rights for the protection of whistle-blowers.

Briefly, I am a lawyer with 25 years of work in this field. In 1998 I founded FAIR, the Federal Accountability Initiative for Reform, and I served as chair of the board for the Government Accountability Project, Tom's organization, in Washington, D.C. I authored two private member whistle-blower bills, introduced in the House in 2002 and 2004, and I've testified to five different Commons and Senate committees. It is fair to say, no pun intended, that my entire professional work for over two decades has been given to promoting the need to protect whistle-blowers and engaging the Canadian public in understanding the indispensable role they play in promoting accountable government.

My clearest understanding of the mighty role that whistle-blowers play in shining a light on corruption and holding powerful institutions to account is as a result of my own whistle-blowing. In 1992, I joined the then Department of External Affairs, and five months in, my life changed forever. I would like to share with you the betrayals of the public trust I discovered and endured, and the efforts at corrective action I took internally for six years, right up to the minister, and externally for 13 years in legal proceedings, but I can't because I am gagged. You must abolish this manoeuvre.

In the absence of being able to speak freely, I will read from a newspaper article by journalist Greg Weston, entitled “Enemy of the state”. It says:

Joanna...had just joined Foreign Affairs as a property manager when she got her first glimpse of taxpayer hell, a Canadian trade official's Tokyo digs costing over $350,000 a year—in rent. Seems the official didn't fancy an $18-million mansion owned by the Canadian government in the same city, which...sat empty for almost four years. Unfortunately, Canada's outpost of opulence in Japan wasn't the only diplomatic money pit taking taxpayers for a ride of the limo kind. Almost everywhere she went, Gualtieri discovered Canada's official face to the world was laughing all the way to the public purse. Naturally, she screamed loud and long to her bosses.... In her mind, she was just doing her job.

Put simply, whistle-blowers are employees who exercise their free speech rights to challenge abuses of power or illegality that harm or betray the public. They represent the highest ideals of public service: loyalty, honesty, and dedication. Let us consider their contributions.

Whistle-blowers save lives. They succeeded in shutting down nuclear plants that were 97% complete, because of shoddy building materials. They have compelled drug companies to withdraw dangerous and lethal drugs. In Canada, Dr. Nancy Olivieri, likely Canada's most prominent whistle-blower, endured 20 years of legal battles because she refused to stay silent about a drug that her data showed as harmful. Frances Kelsey, a Canadian hero, warned the FDA about the dangers of thalidomide. They didn't license it. In Canada we did, and we know the legacy.

Whistle-blowers protect our national security. Pioneer Daniel Ellsberg risked everything when he disclosed secret files, known as the Pentagon papers, about the lies and deceptions the American government promulgated about the Vietnam War. His disclosures to media are widely credited with bringing an end to the war.

If there is ever a doubt about the necessity for the right to blow the whistle to media, listen to what Justice Hugo Black, writing for the Supreme Court of the United States, said:

Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die.... In my view, far from deserving condemnation for their courageous reporting, the New York Times, the Washington Post...should be commended for serving the purpose that the Founding Fathers saw so clearly. In revealing the workings of government that led to the...war, the newspapers nobly did...that which the Founders hoped and trusted they would do.

I had the privilege to meet and talk with Frank Serpico, who blew the whistle on corruption in the NYPD. I wondered why we had heard so little of him until we learned that the trauma led him to seek quiet refuge in Europe.

Whistle-blowers safeguard the public purse and innocent investors. Wrongful spending of public money is nothing new, and neither is cooking the books. Time and again we have witnessed financial scandals—Enron, Nortel, the gun registry, HRDC, the sponsorship scandal, the Senate—in which whistle-blowing could have brought a pre-emptive end to the wrongdoing. Why, then, do we do so little to protect them?

The answer is again simple: powerful institutions do not invite scrutiny. When faced with challenge, the instinct is to extinguish the challenge without ever considering the merit of the matter. What, then, must we do?

First and foremost, we must recognize that leadership is the essential cornerstone of a change movement. Never has a government or politician in Canada shown consistent and passionate commitment to fight for the rights and protection of conscientious whistle-blowers. Your contribution to public life and the health of our nation will be remembered by your commitment to this current undertaking. All else flows from these principles: freedom of speech is a right, trust in our public institutions is paramount, and politicians owe a duty of care to their constituents.

The preponderance of testimony to this committee has been about fine-tuning the legislation. Some presenters have employed negativity and even ad hominem attacks against the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner himself. With 25 years' experience, I see this approach as missing the point. It is like building a fire station without any fire trucks. A law without the prerequisite processes in place to drive the law, without the cultural revolution required to educate the public about the existence and benefits of the law, has little relevance.

The first order of business is to engage in a broad, meaningful, educative movement at the grassroots, not with academics and consultants but with real-life whistle-blowers. They need to be heard. Second and parallel, we need real protection laws, not paper shields, as Tom says. Without real protection, it is presumptuous and immoral to ask whistle-blowers to step forward.

Martin Luther King, Jr., said:

Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.

Herein are the five key elements of any credible whistle-blower protection law.

The first is full free-speech rights. Tom has already spoken to this. Remember, we have a constitutionally guaranteed freedom of expression, and this means that a whistle-blower should be able to self-determine how to blow the whistle. In theory, PSIC is a sound idea, but two points must be made. First, it is naive to believe that an office like PSIC has the power, independence, and resources to take on cases of monumental impact and embarrassment to government. By definition, it is not a failing of the commissioner, but of the structure of the commission itself. Despite a $60-million budget, Justice Gomery could not get to the bottom of the sponsorship scandal.

To highlight the absurdity of a law that imposes exclusive domain on PSIC, consider the following. In Canada, a justice official in a Trump government with information about Russian interference would be compelled to blow the whistle to PSIC. Casting no judgment on any incumbent commissioner, it is absurd to think this would work. The budget is not independent. It is entirely dependent on government, more specifically Treasury Board, and we can see how government could neuter the office by cutting the budget. As Tom said, all disclosures must be protected.

Regarding forums, it is absolutely essential that whistle-blowers have access to our courts of justice. Retaliation is reported to be around 85%. They deserve access to our courts, not to a secondary process.

Then there is remedy. Tom spoke to this very powerfully. Whistle-blowers who suffer reprisals must be made whole.

Corrective action and public accountability is again a matter Tom spoke to. Until the government gets serious about taking corrective action and leading by example, nothing will change.

In conclusion, the task this committee faces is not an easy one, but it is a clear one. Commit to freedom of expression and embark upon drafting laws that respect this right. The evidence is overwhelming that the current law is fatally flawed. You must take action.

Remember, there are two core principles: one, investigate the wrongdoing and order corrective action, and two, ensure that the whistle-blower is given redress. The current law is focused almost entirely on a strict regime dictating and controlling how public servants blow the whistle. Protection is almost an afterthought.

I end with saying this. This year Canada celebrates 150 years of a proud and rich history. This committee has a unique opportunity to contribute to this milestone. I ask you to take the steps to finally secure meaningful and legitimate whistle-blower rights for our public service and protect the inalienable principle of the public's right to know.

Thank you very much for this opportunity.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much for your testimony.

Colleagues, as I mentioned before, we will have one seven-minute round, and we will start with Mr. Whalen.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Joanna, Tom, and John for your passionate testimony this morning.

As our hearings proceed, I'm led to believe now that what we have before us isn't a protection act against disclosures or something that will protect whistle-blowers, but it's almost an act, it seems, to protect wrongdoers more.

Tom, you have some prepared remarks that appear to look at the Canadian law in the context of your international best practices. I'm wondering if all the witnesses could provide a copy of their written prepared remarks so that the committee has them available for its deliberations. Would that be possible?

[Tom Devine]

Yes.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Okay.

Did you reach all 10 points in your remarks, or did you have anything you wanted to add before you clewed up?

[Tom Devine]

I was able to cover all the points in the best practices that I thought were particularly significant.

One additional loophole, however, is that the law does not cover all the whistle-blowers who have significant evidence to disclose. The law doesn't cover intelligence agencies or people in the military. It offers only token protection for law enforcement. This is not consistent with international best practices.

The one point I didn't have a chance to make that I'd like to second from Ms. Gualtieri—with an exclamation point—is the need for a legitimate process as the foundation for modernizing and making over this law. A whistle-blower law that is just imposed by the experts will not have the necessary base of legitimacy for the rights to be affected. If there's not cultural acceptance and there's not a cultural revolution, the legal revolution will be irrelevant for our practical purposes.

I think a good contrast is some of the European countries that have made whistle-blower laws. Romania has a beautiful whistle-blower law on paper, but it was just dictated and shoved through their parliament, and it's been irrelevant in practice.

Serbia had a series of town hall meetings across the nation to get input from citizens. It had over a year's worth of summits with all stakeholders represented—media, labour, the chamber of commerce for corporations, prosecutors, the regulatory agencies, the parliament, and the law enforcement agencies—until there was a consensus on how to structure the rights most effectively so that they would have the most impact on their culture and society and would be the most compatible. I hope this hearing will be the start of that sort of ground-up process in Canada.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you very much.

That's an interesting take on it. We are operating under a regime that we currently have in place as it stands.

This is a question open to all three of you. You've spoken about the need for the whistle-blower to be able to choose their forum of disclosure, and our act sort of has a one-stop shop. People are forced to go through the process set out in the act. In the countries that you've looked at elsewhere, has there been a dramatic or marked increase in the amount of whistle-blowing that is able to take place, or more wrongdoing uncovered in jurisdictions with a more open regime, where whistle-blowers are protected if they go to media or law enforcement?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Perhaps we'll start with Mr. Devine. Then we'll go to Mr. Devitt and finally to Madam Gualtieri.

[Tom Devine]

Thank you.

Yes. There's a much higher volume of whistle-blowing disclosures when you don't have those arbitrary restrictions. Whistle-blowers have probably been the most dynamic political force in the United States in recent years, at least at the level of individual issues, if not elections. One of the premises for our law is that public freedom of expression has to be protected as a rule, rather than as a rare exception, because the government relies so much on the public record for its own oversight of law enforcement. That's been a premise in our rights since 1980, and it was recently upheld by our Supreme Court in a 7-2 decision that involved a case where public freedom of expression by a federal air marshal may have helped to prevent a more ambitious rerun of 9/11 when the government was asleep at the wheel. This is an essential component.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Mr. Devitt, please.

[John Devitt]

We've seen a 150% to 200% increase in calls to our helpline, which provides access to legal advice for whistle-blowers since the legislation here was introduced. I guess the most important feature or impact of the legislation, which I didn't get to in my presentation, is the solitary effect it has for both employers and employees. Up until 2014, as I explained, there were around 18 pieces of legislation on the statute books. This patchwork quilt of legislation protecting private sector workers differently from public sector workers created enormous confusion and uncertainty amongst whistle-blowers. What the Protected Disclosures Act has done is set one standard for all employers that they have to meet, and it makes it clear to employees that they have options when reporting.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Unfortunately, sir, we have to—

[John Devitt]

Now the distinction that, perhaps, we'd make, and with the call for endless opportunity—

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to cut you off there to allow Madam Gualtieri a brief response.

Madam Gualtieri.

[Joanna Gualtieri]

To be very brief, I think, fundamentally, the idea that we impose a regime on people who are serving the public interest is just wrong. I would say this: in the last 20 years since I started, or commenced, my speaking out about wrongdoing at Foreign Affairs, you can see that the energy around whistle-blowing in Canada has dissipated. We were starting to feel enlightened, and I have to tell you that the support I garnered from Tom Devine—he was the very first outside contact I made in September 1998—was critical. We have regressed since then, so we have to renew the public debate.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

We'll go to Mr. Clarke for seven minutes.