Today in the legislature we debated, at second reading, Bill 28: Public Interest Disclosure Act.

This bill proposes legislation based on the recommendations of the B.C. Ombudsperson’s report entitled Misfire: The 2012 Ministry of Health Employment Terminations and Related Matters, that was published in April 2017. The Misfire report examined the wrongful termination of seven Ministry of Health workers in 2012.

Below I reproduce the video and text of my speech.

Video of Speech

Text of Speech

A. Weaver: It gives me great pleasure to rise and stand to speak at second reading in support of Bill 28, Public Interest Disclosure Act. This act is a direct response to the recommendations from the Ombudsperson’s report Misfire: The 2012 Ministry of Health Employment Terminations and Related Matters, which was published in April of 2017.

While I sat in opposition over the last few years, similar types of pieces of legislation were proposed by the then opposition. It was termed whistle-blower legislation at the time, and this is the latest manifestation of that, clearly passed through legislative drafters in a quite substantive matter to give us the form we see here.

The Ombudsperson’s report that formed the basis of driving this bill here investigated the dismissal of seven employees by the Ministry of Health after an initial complaint incorrectly suggested a wrongdoing. That complaint gained rather a lot of momentum and instigated a rush to, some would argue, an inequitable and inappropriate investigation. At the end, there were clearly far-reaching consequences for the individuals involved. In one particularly tragic case, an individual committed suicide as a consequence of the whole process.

The purpose of this act is to provide protection and to develop processes for current and former public service workers who wish to make a disclosure of serious wrongdoing. Public service workers protected under this act are those who are employees of a ministry, a government body or office, including a person appointed by the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council under the Public Service Act. Again, it’s important that civil servants be given such protection in the case of the desire to actually protect the public interest and to be able to bring forward to the public significant matters of public interest when, say, a wrongdoing is noticed.

You know, in the United States right now it’s a bit of a free-for-all in terms of whistle-blowers disclosing left, right and centre. I suspect they should have such legislation, if they do not. In British Columbia’s case, and Canadians in general, we take these matters very seriously. We’re respectful, and typically Canadians, by our very nature, are sometimes…. We don’t like conflict. We don’t like to actually create conflict, but we like to be protected when we see an injustice being done that needs to be brought forward so that injustice is dealt with.

In this particular case, we are seeing that protection will be given in the province of British Columbia to civil servants who might witness such injustice or inappropriate activities that are happening. Right now a person who discloses information must not experience reprisal, according to this act, and will also have the option of disclosing it anonymously to further protect their information. This, too, is important if an investigation is occurring and a whistle-blower to be protected under this act does not want to disclose himself or herself publicly. It’s important to have the protection.

While the bill actually does authorize investigations to occur and it also provides protection for such a whistle-blower, a person in the public service, the problem, of course, is not necessarily the direct response but also the whisper chat. So anonymity is important to avoid the cold-shoulder treatment, the “nobody’s talking to you,” the high school or, should I say, middle school bullying and harassing that sometimes happens. So anonymity being protected is important.

The act is based on other legislation. In particular, there are two pieces of legislation. One is the Manitoba law, which is the Public Interest Disclosure (Whistleblower Protection) Act, which was assented in 2006 in the province of Manitoba. There is some similarity between these two as well as in the province of Alberta, where the Public Sector Disclosure Act is also a similar act in that province, too, I understand.

The Health firings. Again, some of the issues that perhaps need to be brought forward may not also have been highlighted or thought through in this bill, in particular the pervasive issue of harassment, bullying and intimidation in the workplace. We’re hoping that protection for whistle-blowers from such behaviour is also included in this.

Of course, the bill does put a lot of faith in the Office of the Ombudsman or the Auditor General. It seems to me that if we’re giving them so much responsibility as per the matters of the bill, we should ensure that there are safeguards in place that ensure equitable operations in all of these as well. Again, this is a bill that the Green caucus is proud to support. We thank the Attorney General’s office for bringing it in, and we look forward to further expansion in committee stage of some of the details contained in this report.