More than half (56%) of public sector employees are unaware of the existence of a law aimed at protecting whistleblowers, and several of them believe that a “culture of silence” still exists. in Quebec, notes the Public Protector in a report tabled in the National Assembly on Thursday.
“Much remains to be done to ensure that potential disclosers are encouraged to denounce the abuses they witness and are convinced that they are doing so safely,” writes the Protector, Marc-André Dowd.
Its teams submitted a survey to 2,519 respondents from 350 public organizations, such as ministries, school service centers and public health and social services establishments. In total, 56% of respondents said they had “never heard of the whistleblower law”.
This law came into force in May 2017. It resulted from a recommendation from the Charbonneau Commission, which proposed better protecting those who raise the alarm, in particular to guarantee their confidentiality.
Since then, employees continue to believe that they live in “an environment hostile to whistleblowers”. They fear being “hunted”, “tracked” and “possibly punished” if they denounce reprehensible actions, notes the Protector.
Since the entry into force of the law, cases of hunting for whistleblowers have multiplied. In 2021, an aide at the CHSLD de Saint-Laurent was fired after denouncing in The duty the living conditions in which the residents were kept. In December 2022, The duty reported that two Baie-Comeau educators were suspended without pay for an alleged “breach of confidentiality,” after their employee consulted their emails without their knowledge.
One of the most famous cases is that of Louis Robert, this agronomist dismissed in 2019, then reinstated to his position a few months later, after the publication of a damning report about the protection he should have benefited from. Mr. Robert was at the origin of the leak which led journalists from Duty and Radio-Canada to reveal private interference in agro-environmental scientific research. His dismissal was ordered by the Minister of Agriculture, André Lamontagne, who still holds this position.
In its investigation, the Public Protector noted that “some of the staff were visibly marked by the events that whistleblower Louis Robert had to face”. Other employees have “already experienced retaliation after making a disclosure,” or have heard about it. “A recurring fear is that of experiencing what whistleblowers have experienced through the treatment of publicly relayed facts,” it is written in the report.
Especially in health and education
“For many, their workplace is under the influence of a “culture of secrecy”, where the duty of loyalty towards the employer is overvalued (sometimes heavily by the authorities) or presented as taking precedence over that of the employer. report possible wrongdoing. These fears are expressed particularly in the education and health sectors,” observes the Protector. In the midst of a pandemic, in 2020, the former Minister of Health Danielle McCann assured that this “omerta” no longer existed.
In light of the survey, however, the fact remains that 43% of these respondents answered “yes” when asked “whether they think their identity would be well protected if they decided to disclose wrongdoing.” Furthermore, 44% said they did not know, and 13% answered “no” to this question.
The Public Protector recalls in its report that the law on whistleblowers, called the Act to facilitate the disclosure of wrongdoing with regard to public bodies, “provides that each subject public body must establish a procedure to facilitate the disclosure of wrongdoing by employees and that it must designate someone responsible for monitoring disclosures.
As a solution guide, he emphasizes the importance of informing employees of the existence, ins and outs of this law. He recalls the importance of putting forward “measures to protect identity and against reprisals”. This, the Protector hopes, will “instill in the potential discloser the confidence and courage which must accompany him throughout his approach”.