By Garry Clement, October 3, 2025
In every democracy, truth has defenders. They are often not politicians or CEOs, but ordinary people – whistleblowers who decide that their duty to the public outweighs their loyalty to silence. Yet in Canada, they are too often treated not as guardians of democracy but as expendable collateral.
Consider the troubling cases of Brian McAdam and of Susan Holmes, Cora Nicholson and Svetlana Tentko. McAdam, a former Canadian diplomat, uncovered evidence of Chinese organized crime’s deep entanglement with Canadian immigration and political systems. Instead of receiving support, his superiors at the Department of Foreign Affairs ridiculed and ostracized him. They dismissed his findings and effectively dismantled his career. Holmes, Nicholson, and Tentko came forward with allegations of bribery tied to Prince Edward Island’s immigrant investor program. They exposed what they believed was corruption at the heart of a system meant to bring economic opportunity. Instead of being protected, they were punished. CBC later reported that these women’s courage in stepping forward “destroyed their lives.”
Canada’s whistleblower laws are widely regarded as ineffective. They give the appearance of protecting people who disclose wrongdoing, but in practice they have failed to provide meaningful safeguards or remedies.
A System Built to Fail
At the federal level, the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act (PSDPA), introduced in 2007, was intended to shield federal employees who report wrongdoing. In reality, it has produced negligible results, including weak reprisal protections and concerns about effectiveness, as recounted in the 2017 review of the Act. Since its enactment, not a single whistleblower has been reinstated in their job after retaliation.
The Auditor General of Canada has criticized the framework for being inaccessible, poorly communicated, and ineffective in protecting whistleblowers. International assessments, including by Transparency International, have ranked Canada near the bottom among G20 countries for whistleblower protection.
The problem is structural. Oversight bodies such as the Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner (PSIC) are not truly independent. They report to Parliament but depend heavily on government processes, creating an appearance of conflict of interest. Investigations are slow, opaque, and stacked against complainants, discouraging truth-tellers from ever coming forward.
Provincial regimes largely mirror this flawed model. For example, Alberta, Manitoba, and Ontario have whistleblower laws, but they provide little more than procedural mechanisms, without robust remedies or independent adjudication. As a result, public servants across Canada face similar risks of retaliation without meaningful recourse.
Silence as a Reward
The absence of real protection creates perverse incentives. Wrongdoers understand that whistleblowers risk losing their careers, reputations, and financial security. Silence becomes the safer path, while speaking out is career-ending.
In contrast, the United States provides independent oversight through bodies like the Office of Special Counsel, allows for judicial review, and offers remedies such as reinstatement and back pay. In certain contexts (e.g., securities or False Claims Act cases), whistleblowers may also receive financial compensation. These measures don’t eliminate risks but at least give individuals a fighting chance.
Canada’s system, by comparison, often serves as a deterrent: those who wish to keep their livelihood must stay quiet.
The Human Toll
The human consequences are severe. Whistleblowers frequently face sudden career loss, professional blacklisting, and prolonged financial distress. Many experience long-term psychological harm, including anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress.
Examples include federal scientists who raised concerns about environmental risks, auditors highlighting procurement irregularities, and civil servants who flagged contract manipulation. In each case, disclosures were met with retaliation or silencing, leaving professionals isolated and disillusioned.
These individuals acted in the public interest, yet Canada’s system left them unprotected.
The Cost to Canadians
The cost of weak protections is not only measured in human suffering but also in systemic waste and corruption. Without safeguards, corruption and mismanagement thrive. Taxpayer money is lost to inflated contracts, misallocated funds, and unchecked fraud.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has consistently highlighted that whistleblower protection is essential to preventing corruption and safeguarding public funds. When protections are weak, misconduct goes unreported, and institutions lose credibility. Public trust erodes, and cynicism toward democratic governance deepens.
Several examples demonstrate why it is paramount for Canada to take a lead role in advancing whistleblower protection as a means of ensuring accountability.
The federal government’s Phoenix Pay System offers a domestic case in point. Federal employees raised early concerns about the system’s flawed rollout, but with weak whistleblower protections, many feared reprisals and stayed silent. Their silence allowed the crisis to balloon into one of the largest administrative failures in Canadian history, ultimately costing taxpayers billions and undermining confidence in public-sector management.
International cases underscore similar patterns. In the Danske Bank money-laundering scandal, weak protections delayed disclosures about billions of dollars moved through Estonia, while in the LuxLeaks affair, whistleblowers who exposed secret tax deals were prosecuted instead of protected. Both scandals illustrate the OECD’s concern that corruption thrives when insiders cannot safely report wrongdoing. Likewise, in the UN’s Oil-for-Food Program, whistleblowers who flagged irregularities were marginalized or ignored. Weak protections enabled corruption and mismanagement to flourish in a program worth billions, severely damaging the credibility of international institutions.
Across these cases, the absence of strong whistleblower protections deepened corruption, wasted public funds, and eroded trust in governance. They collectively affirm the OECD’s conclusion that effective whistleblower protection is not peripheral to democracy but central to accountability and financial integrity.
What Must Change
If Canada is serious about fighting corruption and protecting democracy, it must pursue structural reform of its whistleblower protection regime. At the core of this effort is the need for independent oversight. An office with true independence from government departments and political influence – comparable to the US Office of Special Counsel or the UK Office of the Whistleblower – should be established. Such an office must have the authority not only to investigate claims of retaliation but also to enforce remedies.
Those remedies must be meaningful. Whistleblowers should have access to reinstatement, back pay, damages for pain and suffering, and coverage of legal costs. Without such provisions, protections remain symbolic. International research, including findings from Transparency International, demonstrates that effective remedies reduce fear of retaliation and encourage more employees to come forward.
Reform must also include expanded coverage. Current protections exclude many at risk of encountering corruption, such as contractors, consultants, provincial employees, and private-sector workers involved in high-value areas like infrastructure and healthcare procurement. The European Union’s Whistleblower Protection Directive (2019) provides a useful model, requiring protections across both public and private sectors.
In addition, Canada needs accessible reporting channels. Employees must be able to choose between internal, external, and public-interest disclosures, with safeguards against reprisal guaranteed at each stage. Forcing whistleblowers to rely solely on flawed internal mechanisms undermines both confidence and effectiveness.
Beyond structures and rules, genuine cultural change is essential. Whistleblowers should be recognized as vital contributors to transparency and accountability. Training for managers, public campaigns highlighting the value of whistleblowers, and explicit commitments from leadership can help reset attitudes within government and institutions.
Finally, Canada must adopt effective, enforceable laws. Legislation should clearly define retaliation, impose penalties on those who engage in it, and guarantee timely investigations. Deadlines, transparent reporting of outcomes, and enforceable sanctions are critical to building trust and ensuring the system functions as intended.
A Test of Our Democracy
Canada cannot continue to claim transparency while failing those who risk everything to expose wrongdoing. The costs – human, financial, and democratic – are too high.
Whistleblowers are not enemies of the state; they are its last line of defence. If Canada continues to abandon them, the true betrayal will not be theirs but ours.
Garry Clement is a former RCMP officer and current chair of Whistleblowers Canada’s Research Society Advisory Committee.
