Award honours whistle-blowers as Public Guardians
When someone blows the whistle on wrongdoing in an organization more often than not it is the whistle-blower who suffers the most. Whistle-blowers are likely to find their lives turned upside down. They suffer retaliation, being fired, emotional and financial stress, attacks on their integrity and motives, alienation and loss. Yet most whistle-blowers say that their sense of honour and integrity would not have allowed them to act otherwise. On Monday May 9. 2005 Drug Safety Canada in conjunction with the Canadian Health Coalition introduced a new award for 'Public Guardians': The Vanessa Award. This award recognizes "Integrity and Courage in the Public Interest", an important kind of quiet heroism. Each recipient has acted courageously to protect the health of the public, despite the prospect and subsequent reality of great personal and professional sacrifice. Two awards were to be presented posthumously.
Most media coverage has involved whistleblowers in public service or big business. We often forget that public universities here in Ontario and elsewhere have large budgets and bureaucracies of administrators.
It has been observed that "In practice University administrations are no more capable of policing themselves than is Wall Street" (see Malfeasance in academe and its danger for democracy). And here in Ontario this problem is exacerbated because our publicly funded universities are exempt provincial Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation. Effectively this means university bureaucrats operate without transparency or accountable and their actions are not subject to public scrutiny.
Nancy Olivieri is an example of a whistle-blower in an Ontario university. We believe there to be other whistle-blowers in Ontario universities who have suffered for their efforts.
Henry Kissinger is credited with saying "University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small." We certainly agree that university politics are particularly vicious, and in light of that and the need for transparency and accountability we believe there should be legislation protecting whistle-blowers in universities from retribution, particularly in provinces like Ontario where univesities are exempt from FOI legislation.If you are a whistle-blower in a university, and particularly in an Ontario university, we invite you to tell us of your experience in confidence to . We are also interested in hearing from those who are considering blowing the whistle on any form of management malfeasance in universities. We will not publish anything from with your expressed permission.
What is a whistle-blower?
whistle-blower n: an informant who exposes wrongdoing within an organization in the hope of stopping it; "the law gives little protection to whistleblowers who feel the public has a right to know what is going on"; "the whistleblower was fired for exposing the conditions in mental hospitals"
| "Whistle-blowers to be honoured" Globe and Mail On-Line ( Canadian Press ) - May 8, 2005 Ottawa - They took a stand and they paid the price. Some of Canada's best-known whistle-blowers will receive awards Monday for their work defending the public interest, but there won't likely be any glee at this ceremony. Most of the nominees have suffered severe career damage, some are in financial distress, and one has died because, his colleagues say, the pressure overwhelmed him. "We've lost a friend, that's devastating for us," said Shiv Chopra, a former Health Canada veterinary scientist who was fired last year after a long record of criticizing departmental policies. He was referring to former colleague Chris Bassude, who died in 2002 of a suspected heart attack after being demoted for insubordination. Two other scientists who worked with Mr. Chopra and Mr. Bassude, Margaret Haydon and Gerard Lambert, are also receiving the Vanessa Award, named in honour of Vanessa Charlotte Young, who died at 15 of an adverse drug reaction. The award is sponsored by Drug Safety Canada, an advocacy group founded by Vanessa's father, Terence Young, and the Canadian Health Coalition. "We continue to suffer a great financial load and stress," said Mr. Chopra, 70, who has earned no income since his dismissal. He has put his house on the market while he waits for an appeal before a federal staff-relations agency. "I don't know how long it's going to go on. It's a stress but on the other hand it's my duty which I'll never give up on." Other recipients of the Vanessa Award:
"These are people who have paid a high personal cost for speaking up to protect the public in matters related to health," said Mr. Young of Drug Safety Canada. He says that many of the issues exposed by the whistle-blowers - he prefers the term "public guardians" - remain unresolved. The federal government has introduced legislation it says will protect whistle-blowers, but Mr. Chopra said the new bill would make things worse rather than better. In any case, the bill wouldn't apply to his case. Health Canada has refused to recognize that Mr. Chopra, Mrs. Haydon, Mr. Bassude and Mr. Lambert fit the definition of whistle-blowers. Ms. Haydon says she is learning how to live on a reduced household budget and has no regrets about the actions that resulted in her dismissal. "I think it's the health and safety of the public that is the most important thing," she said. |
