Mr. Speaker, I thank all the members who participated in this debate on Bill C-201, my private member's bill, which provides in law for the protection of a whistleblower in the workplace. It prohibits retaliatory action against whistleblowers. It ensures that Canada sets into law, not in just a wishy-washy, half-baked policy, the framework for a legal grievance procedure and a defined recourse for our conscientious public servants who report wrongdoing within the system.
Bill C-201 provides for a mechanism to address the wrongdoing and compensates the whistleblowers for any damages they suffer. We need to encourage public servants to come forward when they find evidence of wrongdoing, corruption or the misuse of taxpayers' money.
The threat of employer retaliation must be eliminated in order to encourage government employees to speak up. By passing legislation, Parliament will send a clear message to employees that they will be protected by law if they blow the whistle. Time Magazine declared 2002 the year of whistleblowers and featured three famous whistleblowers on the front page. If this bill were passed, with appropriate legislation in place perhaps Maclean's magazine would make a similar declaration in 2003.
There is a very important need for the bill. The drinking water fiasco in Walkerton, Ontario could have been prevented. As well, the September 11 terrorist attacks highlight a longstanding necessity to strengthen free speech protection for national security whistleblowers. Also, the accounting misdeeds that led to the collapse of corporate giants like Enron, Arthur Andersen and WorldCom and resulted in thousands of workers losing their jobs left many wondering why someone did not blow the whistle on these dishonest practices sooner.
Many countries have this whistleblower legislation, as I mentioned, such as the United States, the U.K., Australia and New Zealand. In the United States, whistleblower protection was passed unanimously by Congress in 1989, a long time ago, and was strengthened again by a unanimous vote in 1994. In the U.S. there is also a whistleblower reporting agency. Under the federal false claims act in the U.S.A. a whistleblower can receive a percentage of money that is recovered.
Here in Canada we need such legislation. The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, which is a national union representing about 36,000 professional and scientific employees, and the Public Service Alliance of Canada, representing about 150,000 federal public servants, have been calling for the enactment of legislation to protect federal public sector employees from reprisals for blowing the whistle. Whistleblowers should not be denied fair and just redress for the injuries they suffer as a result of disclosing corruption and rot in the system.
Bill C-201 is a unique and comprehensive bill. It is unique because whistleblowers like Brian McAdam, Joanna Gualtieri, founder of FAIR, Federal Accountability, Integrity and Resolution, and Louis Clark, executive director and founder of the U.S. Government Accountability Project, GAP, were consulted to take advantage of their real life experiences. I thank them for their input in drafting the bill.
However, the government does not seem prepared to pass legislation, being content instead with an internal disclosure policy that even its overseer says is flawed. Despite a caucus document that was approved a long time ago, I consider this another broken promise. It was promised in caucus that it would support whistleblower legislation and today the parliamentary secretary denied that.
The non-legislative approach offers little new incentive for employees or potential whistleblowers in this country who would rather not disclose wrongdoing to their employers. It is an affront to democracy. It is inhibiting transparency and accountability in the government and putting the lives of many Canadians in jeopardy because something going wrong somewhere will not be reported to the public. I think it is an affront to democracy and it should not be happening.
The government still has a chance to support the bill. If members support the bill, I urge them to send it to a committee where it can be amended if there is any problem with it.
I thank all the members who participated in this debate.