Ian Bron currently serves as a volunteer senior fellow at the Centre for Free Expression Whistleblowing Initiative and on the advisory board of Whistleblowing Canada Research Society. His doctoral dissertation "Square Peg in a Round Hole? Three Case Studies into Institutional Factors Affecting Public Service Whistleblowing Regimes in the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia" was successfully defended at Carleton University on August 19, 2022. Some funding for field research was provided by the Performance and Planning Exchange.
Canada has had whistleblowing laws since 2007, when the federal government’s Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act (PSDPA) came into force. All provinces have followed suit, most adopting modified versions of the PSDPA.
But there is no evidence that any of these laws work. A recent study by the International Bar Association’s legal policy and research unit ranked the PSDPA as one of the worst in the world. The private sector has no law at all.
As a former Canadian Forces naval officer and government manager who blew the whistle at Transport Canada in 2006 about marine safety regulations, I know this puts the public at risk.
These feeble laws may also lead to more undetected wrongdoing and harmful policies — including employment insurance rejection quotas, laws that are flagrantly unconstitutional and the dismantling of Canada’s universal health-care system.
The last is the most immediate threat.
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