Government Operations committee  One thing that has not been discussed here today is how whistle-blowers work in reality. I reflect that. Most of the whistle-blowers I've talked to, especially when you're talking about systemic wrongdoing—not individual acts, somebody stealing a TV or something of that nature—th

Government Operations committee  I'm not entirely sure what you mean by being proactive. I'm going to assume that you mean they should go out and kick off investigations by themselves.

Government Operations committee  I don't think that the office has the resources to do that. There will be plenty of public servants who, with a belief and a trust in the system, will come forward with information. That will keep the office very busy. Again, Thomas highlighted that there really are two issues.

Government Operations committee  I'll briefly address the gag order. There's something that is so fundamentally perverse that a whistle-blower, who by definition steps up with information of public value, is then forced into a gag order and forever prevented from speaking that which they basically made...that wa

Government Operations committee  I think that if the law is an effective law, a legitimate whistle-blower protection law, then you test it by seeing how it's working. If there was a need to review it, then you can take measures to undertake that. But the first order of business is to get a law in place that is o

Government Operations committee  I speak to university students. In fact, next week I'm going to the University of Western Ontario. I can tell you that they simply do not understand what is at stake here. Once they do, they are engaged and they feel enormous enthusiasm. I met with a journalism student a couple o

Government Operations committee  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

Government Operations committee  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-bl