Report finds Ontario legislation for protecting whistleblowers to be useless

September 30, 2022
Back to All News

Today, WIN Member, the  Centre For Free Expression  (CFE) at Toronto Metropolitan University has published the first in their series of reports evaluating whistleblower legislation in Canada. 
 

The report measures the provisions of the Ontario legislation against Evaluation of Criteria for Protection of Whistleblowers developed by researchers at the Centre. ​ According to the author, Ian Bron, it meets none of the key criteria necessary for adequate protection “to a degree that renders it useless.” The report also finds that  “The [Ontario] whistleblowing provisions fail all CFEWI criteria, mainly due to what we identify as critical shortcomings”.

“We hope this report will help be a wakeup call to the Ford government to take steps to provide real protection for Ontarians who speak out on matters of interest,” said James L. Turk, director of the Centre for Free Expression. “We look forward to working with them to fix a very bad situation they have inherited.”

Turk pointed out that what is necessary to provide real protection is well known and readily doable.

At the end of each month for the coming year, the CFE will issue a report detailing its assessment of a different province’s law protecting whistleblowers, ending in September 2023 with a report on the Federal legislation. Next month’s report will be on whistleblower protection in Nova Scotia.

Read the full report here