North Battleford council has given first reading to a bylaw aimed at protecting whistleblowers and strengthening workplace transparency.
NORTH BATTLEFORD – North Battleford city council has given first reading to a new whistleblower protection bylaw.
City clerk Stacey Hadley said in her report that it’s important in local government that public servants espouse core values of integrity, respect, trust, professionalism and accountability in their everyday conduct.
"Although there have been no concerns raised warranting a bylaw of this nature, this bylaw is being presented as a tool to further build on organizational and the public's trust and comfort in community transparency," she said.
The whistleblower protection bylaw aims to establish the framework and process required to investigate allegations of suspected wrongdoing of city employees, while also establishing protection from reprisal for those reporting suspected wrongdoing in good faith.
Now that it has gone through first reading, the bylaw will come back to council on Oct. 14 for second and third readings.
"There were councillors last fall asking city administration to look at a whistleblower policy just to provide staff a mechanism where it's kind of a safe place to deal with those types of conflicts in the workplace if there's not currently a pathway," said Mayor Kelli Hawtin. "So as the city manager mentioned, there's no situation that's arising that's having this policy brought forward, but it was council...
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