Alberta’s public interest commissioner is recommending changes to the province’s whistleblower act that the government didn’t act on after receiving the same recommendations during a review in 2021.
The Public Interest Disclosure (Whistleblower Protection) Act is legislation that protects government employees from reprisal if they make disclosures of wrongdoing. The act, which requires a statutory review every five years, also sets out the bodies that are subject to the legislation.
In 2021, the standing committee on resource stewardship, made up of MLAs from the governing United Conservative Party and Opposition NDP, submitted a report with its recommendations to the legislature on June 29 of that year.
The government did not bring forward any changes to the legislation in the years that followed.
Kevin Brezinski, Alberta’s current public interest commissioner, is trying again. He repeated many of the same recommendations in a report he submitted for the current review of the act.
“They're extremely important recommendations,” Brezinski said in an interview with CBC News.“Hopefully they'll be implemented this time.”
The current version of the standing committee will meet Tuesday to start deliberations on what recommendations it will make this time. MLAs have heard verbal testimony from the United Nurses of Alberta and the Centre for Free Expression at Toronto Metropolitan University.
They have also received written submissions from Brezinski and other stakeholders...
In Distefano v. Bank of America, N.A., the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts dismissed Chapter 93A claims arising from allegedly unauthorized transfers through the money-transf...