Thank you. I'm very pleased to be here today. As a fellow Canadian who hasn't worked in the field of whistle-blowing directly in Canada, except through some work with the Centre for Free Expression at Toronto Metropolitan University, I'm very pleased you're reviewing this law.
I have worked in the field for 23 years. I was called to the Ontario bar, but switched allegiances to the Law Society of England and Wales. I was the deputy director of Public Concern at Work—which is now called Protect—so I answered the phone to whistle-blowers across the U.K. The whistle-blowing law in the U.K. has been in place since 1993. It covers public sector workers, private sector workers and charitable workers.
What I was astonished by, even though Canada put a law in place in the 2000s—obviously in a period in which others were taking those steps—was that the law itself didn't follow some of the best practices that make sense. I think you have already heard about some of this. I will go through it very briefly.
I want to point out that this isn't new. The ancient Greeks had a term for this: parrhēsia, or “fearless speech”. Under the Hellenic monarchs, for example, the king's adviser was required to use it to help the king make decisions, but also as a means of tempering his power.
I would note that what Canada seems to have done is implement a law that quite adequately deals with helping the government make decisions. It improves some of the flow of information through to the government. However, it has not implemented a law that effectively tempers power and those who are negligent or abusing their power.
The act of whistle-blowing, of course, has lost none of its importance during the 23 years I have worked in the field, from the Chinese doctor who first warned us of COVID-19—and died of it—to hundreds of medical and care staff across the globe who called out supply shortages and mismanagement. We knew more about how to protect ourselves and what the pandemic meant because of these truth-tellers, but, unfortunately, two attempts were made to silence these voices. Dr. Li was initially ordered by the police to stop making “false” comments, and doctors, nurses and government employees across the world lost their jobs for speaking out.
We know whistle-blowers are typically those in the workplace, whether in the public, private or charitable sectors. They are the first to see something go wrong, so they often have a preventive role. As a Canadian, I think this makes perfect sense. People speak up about wrongdoing. If it's not dealt with as something that could harm others, and they lose their job or suffer retaliation, the law ought to step in and protect them.
Whistle-blowers are also now seen as essential for credible law enforcement against corruption. Of course, they can threaten organizational leaders who are, perhaps, themselves abusing power or don't like to be questioned. They often respond with an almost instinctive drive to destroy the threat. We need to start with the view that “whistle-blower”, as a definition, does not equal “martyr”. We need laws that, as Tom Devine pointed out, give whistle-blowers a fighting chance to survive. The laws need teeth.
One thing to think about when we talk about this revolution in whistle-blowing law.... We have had a number of laws through time. I thought I would mention a few that have put in practice, from the beginning, some of the elements we're talking about.
For instance, one of your witnesses today talked about working for the military or potentially working with official secrets information. Ireland has had a law since 2014. Within that law, it has a special system for protecting those working with official secrets information.
In Serbia, the Law on the Protection of Whistleblowers since 2014 also includes a duty on judges to be certified—to be trained—before they are able to hear any whistle-blowing claims. The only other laws in which they have to be certified are child protection laws. The correlation between judicial training and the strongest implementation of interim injunctive relief yet seen in any jurisdiction is quite clear. This is starting to be rolled out more and discussed in Europe.
What Tom Devine also mentioned is the EU directive. I have also put in my notes to you the EU whistleblowing monitor. You can see we have been tracking the laws across the EU. With the EU directive—which is obviously making 27 European countries put in laws now—we're witnessing what I think is this important shift, one the Canadian law needs to take aboard: This is as much about accountability as it is about protecting the individual. In that law, there are now duties of care on employers, organizations and regulating authorities in terms of how they run their systems and arrangements for protecting whistle-blowers.
I think there are five essential elements, and Mr. Devine has given you quite a lot of detail around what needs to be put in place, but I wanted to emphasize five. It has to be a broad and—