Ottawa — Ottawa's new bill to protect whistle blowers would not have been enough to persuade most employees in George Radwanski's office to bring forward allegations of wrongdoing, results of an internal government survey show.
Asked for their reaction to a whistle-blower protection policy similar to the one Ottawa recently unveiled, almost two-thirds of employees surveyed — 63 per cent — in the Office of the Privacy Commissioner said they didn't think it would protect them because they didn't trust their managers. Only 6 per cent of respondents said they believed the policy would work.
Thirty-eight per cent said they thought confidentiality would be breached, and the same percentage didn't think protection from reprisal was possible.
"Distrust and fear were clearly the most significant barriers," according to a report attached to the survey.
The survey, obtained by Ottawa researcher Ken Rubin, also raises fresh questions about the proposed legislation.
Bill C-25 has been called the first to provide bureaucrats with the legal protection needed to highlight wrongdoing. But the bill, unveiled in March, follows the existing structure in that it would require whistle blowers, with some exceptions, to make their disclosure through internal government channels.
The legislation also says civil servants can be disciplined or even fired if they don't follow government rules for disclosures of possible wrongdoing, or if a disclosure is "frivolous or vexatious or in bad faith."
The government says the legislation, which also calls for the creation of a public-service integrity commissioner to investigate complaints, fulfills a major pledge.
"This government came to office with a commitment to change the way things work," Denis Coderre, president of the Privy Council, said last week. "The actions we are taking today reflect that commitment."
Critics say the legislation will put off many potential whistle blowers by forcing them to air their concern within the system they're criticizing.
"It's established, defined and controlled by the government," Anne Kothawala, head of the Canadian Newspaper Association, said recently.
Conservative MP Paul Forseth said the government chose to maintain the internal method of disclosure specifically to discourage whistle blowers and minimize the risk of scandal. "They're afraid of an absolute deluge of complaints."
The polling firm Leadership Unlimited Inc. surveyed 48 of 108 employees in the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for the government between July 30 and Aug. 19, 2003, just weeks after Mr. Radwanski resigned in disgrace.
Sixty-three per cent of respondents said they had been aware of wrongdoing since November, 2001, that they hadn't reported. The key reasons listed were fear of reprisal (92 per cent), lack of faith in managers' ability to protect staff (69 per cent) and lack of faith in managers' intent to protect staff (58 per cent). (Respondents were allowed to select more than one answer to that question.)
Prime Minister Paul Martin has made tackling the so-called democratic deficit a priority, and achieving that goal has become more important since the sponsorship scandal. One of the elements needed to do that, government officials have said frequently,frequently, is improving transparency.
