This is the story of a few Saskatchewan Seniors who attempted to report to the proper authorities improper taxation in what they believed was one Saskatchewan Regional Park Authority. Their attempts to get this corrected resulted in years of retribution and eventually the wrong-doing was discovered to be much wider than initially believed. The retribution was in the form of legal tactics, threats,  law suits, Judges and conflict of interest, and stone-walling by political authorities with responsibility for dealing with the situation. They are in jeopardy of losing their homes and saw no other option but to appeal to Canada’s Parliament.

Good day Honourable Chair Sarai and Standing Committee members, 

We understand the Standing Committee is generally focused on broad and evolving issues that affect the lives of everyday Canadians. Perhaps our issues will not resonate within your group because every day Canadians do not usually find themselves in civil court defending themselves against well-funded agents of government. “You can’t fight City Hall” is a saying at least 200 years old. Its origins are founded in the belief that bureaucratic structures spending public money will always fight to the bitter end rather than admit a mistake or deliberate wrongdoing. It’s the same theme that prompted US satirist Will Rogers to say the country was being run by the best politicians money could buy. 

In a terrible example of “progress”, it is now accepted that politicians will lie and will do so without consequence. Lying by misdirection, by omission or by flat propagating false statements are among the broad unspoken approvals in our world of sound byte politics.   

What should be of great concern is that lying in the courts of Canada now come with their own unspoken approvals. The very cornerstone of everything we have been taught since childhood centers around the concept of honesty. This is especially true in courts of law where not too many years ago, those testifying in a court of law did so with their hand on a bible, another cornerstone of our would be “just society”. 

However, in our own circumstances we have been told by a member of the Supreme Court that in court perjury is addressed at the discretion of the judge. The everyday citizen hearing that, has to immediately wonder about the discretion of a judge who would allow perjury. It is especially troubling if you are on the side of the courtroom equation facing the perjury. 

We have been in contact with numerous Canadians who have been on the wrong end of judicial discretion regarding perjured statements. We have witnessed it up close and personal three times in two years, all under the same judge. In a 2021 Canadian Judicial Council review, Chief Justice for the Supreme Court of British Columbia, Christopher Hinkson, stated it was within a judge’s discretionary right to ignore perjury. 

In our case the line between justice and politics became very blurred and, in applications seven and eight, perjury prevailed and court decisions were made based on the falsehoods. This was not alleged perjury that might be claimed by a disappointed loser in a court battle; this was material fact perjury verified by Freedom of Information documents received from Municipal Government which disproved the often-used perjury contained in the sworn statements of another agent of Government. 

In practical terms we are helpless to act to protect ourselves simply because we don’t have access to public funds to freely spend on the litigation industry that is always at the center of these disputes. 

If this trend continues it will soon, if it’s not already, be a matter of whoever has the best Liar, wins. 

PERJURY:  a Criminal Code of Canada indictable offence; but go ahead and lie in your affidavit, turns out addressing perjury is a matter of judicial discretion NOT law. 

Here is the story of a medical specialist in a university health centre in Quebec, a story that is repeated in other provinces and experienced by other professionals and which affects many people in harmful ways.

It is reasonable to think that if a committee were formed that included a person with a master’s degree in Aerospace Science, another with a PhD in Mathematical Physics, another with a Medical Doctorate and specialist credentials who was capable of highly specialized research and applications, another that was a University Professor and collectively they had received numerous awards; that committee would be considered very credible and well anchored in professional terms.

What if, instead of it being a committee holding all these stellar qualifications and abilities, it was just one man? A man whose credentials and accomplishments encompass all that and more? Most of us would think this is an extraordinary person obviously functioning at a stratospheric level of intelligence with broad scientific and medical understanding.

Just such a man lives in Quebec. He is Doctor Richard Le Blanc, a man who has dedicated his life to learning, teaching and to helping people, some of whom were truly in life and death situations. 

What did he get for all his efforts and dedication? He was bullied by colleagues and unofficially blacklisted by those in positions of authority above him. 

It has taken two full decades for Dr. Le Blanc to make inroads against those in the medical, scientific and academic communities of his province who set out to ostracize him both professionally and socially.

Dr. Le Blanc has never been officially charged or disciplined for any wrongdoing, yet he was treated as if he had broken all the rules of a just society. What was his crime?

He is a qualified scientist who questioned the opinions of a colleague who held a more senior management position. He also questioned the practice of large pharmaceutical corporations funding University research and review of new products – the potential for bias is obvious even to those of us well outside the scientific and medical worlds.

Dr. Le Blanc has worked at the very highest levels of medical research and physical science.  His professions demand that all things that affect humanity at the very core be questioned in the most stringent way. When he attempted to do that, Dr. Le Blanc was not officially chastised in any way.  Instead, he was bullied by his peers and mentors in the very same way a child faces attack and ostracization in the school yard. We are often told “the bullies are always the weak ones”. Perhaps the weakness is not physical but rather weak in self-esteem and maybe also intellect?

If Dr. Le Blanc was deserving of all the harm that landed on him, why didn't "they" attack him in public and make an example of him? Instead, they constructed a wall of silence around the real concerns and discredited him literally beyond belief. The apparent reason - his insights - were valid and damaging to other reputations and financing. Keeping that quiet was job number one so rather than embrace the well-informed considerations of a dedicated man, who raised valid, ethical and scientifically sound questions, a concentrated effort was made to render him as ineffective as possible.  This was apparently aimed at ensuring that reasonable employment, recognition and the ability to have a public voice were denied Dr. Le Blanc.  Colleagues in the Quebec Medical establishment created a self-fulfilling prophecy by first discrediting Dr. Le Blanc, refusing to provide letters of recommendation, restricting access to his own scientific writings and ultimately designing circumstances in which they could assess him unemployable in his chosen fields.

The recent CTV -W5 documentary “The Problem with Pills” illustrates in horrific detail, what happens when whistleblowers – often experts in their fields - are ignored and not protected, laws to protect the public are not upheld and policies are diverted from the public interest towards a specific interest.  These actions have led us to a place where 22,000 or more innocent Canadians die a year from adverse reactions to legally prescribed drugs.

One W5 participant noted Health Canada had “backed down” from enforcing the many extra powers the Protecting Canadians from Unsafe Drugs Act (Vanessa's Law) gave it. The Food and Drugs Act and Vanessa’s Law are part of criminal law in Canada.  And Health Canada does not uphold it?  The main message from the participants was – do not trust Health Canada to protect you from unsafe drugs.  How have we arrived at such a dark place? 

Here’s how.  In 1996 the top medical regulator from Health Canada, Dr. Michele Brill-Edwards, tried to warn us that not enforcing the law, deregulation and shifts in priorities taking place at the Department were leading to more deaths from unsafe drugs.  She sacrificed her career to speak out in the interest of public safety but her message went unheeded.   Many knowledgeable others have also tried to warn us:

• The Auditor General - warned us and Parliament a number of times about the deficiencies in the regulatory body – Health Canada- which included funding and staff cuts among many others.
• Researchers - starting in 2000 with Wiktorowicz’s work , Shifting priorities at the Health Protection Branch: challenges to the regulatory process. Also, there is the work of 16 researchers in the Fall 2013 issue of The Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics on the topic of Institutional Corruption and the Pharmaceutical Policy.  They clarify how certain practices have corrupted medical research, the production of medical knowledge, the practice of medicine, drug safety and Regulatory oversight of pharmaceutical marketing.
• The Media – alerted us over the years with stories of unsafe drugs.

Almost 25 years later, the media and W5 are warning us again, about needless Canadian deaths from unsafe drugs.

The reasons for this are:

It has been a busy summer.  In June, two of Whistleblowing Canada's Directors, Ian Bron and I, attended a two day Conference organized by the International Whistleblowing Research Network(IWRN) in Utrecht, Netherlands.  The gathering included prominent whistleblowing academics, researchers, whistleblowers and non-profit organizations supporting whistleblowers from around the world.  The sharing of the knowledge and experience of those attending was empowering and confidence-building as it reinforced many of our own findings and future plans.   One of the most memorable (and disconcerting) moments came when one researcher gave a preliminary glimpse of results of research being done by his organization aimed at examining whistleblower protection legislation from some 60 countries to determine how many contained "best practices".  Experts have identified 20 elements considered "best practice".  It was announced at the Conference, for all to hear, that Canada's Federal whistleblower protection law, the Public Servant Disclosure Protection Act (PSDPA) does not contain even one best practice.  In effect it does not protect whistleblowers.  Canadian academics have pointed out that provincial legislation has been largely modeled after the federal legislation.  This does not auger well for whistleblowers or Canadians.  Donald Savoie, a well known expert on Canadian Public Administration, tells us that Canada's democratic institutions are "disintegrating".  In the age of disinformation, the attack on truth, and failure of our Access to Information laws,  whistleblowing is the only way we can know what is really going on in government.  And it is only by knowing what is really going on that we can make informed decisions and take reasonable action to participate in our democracy.   With this in mind Whistleblowing Canada has written to all party leaders regarding recommended (and ignored) amendments to the PSPDA.    

Welcome to Whistleblowing Canada's Blog.  The following is the first post.  I hope it is the first of many that will stimulate discussion and debate on the issues that concern us.

Is it Time to Reboot Canadian Democracy?

Recently the media has had a large focus on a number of issues that speak to how Canadian citizens are governed federally.  I refer here to questions raised by the SNC – Lavalin affair around:

1. the rule of law – which means not only that the law must be obeyed but also that it applies to everyone equally including the Prime Minister and large powerful corporations.
2. the role of the Clerk of the Privy Council – does s/he represent to his/her political masters the considered, best, impartial opinions/advice of the federal bureaucracy in the public interest or does s/he represent to the bureaucracy the views/preferences of his political masters which they are to support unquestioningly?
3. the role of a public servant – is it solely to assist the Prime Minister and Ministers implement their policy preferences or does a public servant have a role as guardian of the rule of law and the public trust?
4. are we governed by democratically elected representatives and an Executive headed by the leader of the party in power and his/her Cabinet who are responsible/answerable to the members of the House of Commons from all parties? Or,
5. are we governed by leaders (and bureaucrats at their political leaders behest) who are too close to the very large, powerful companies who supposedly “creat jobs” (a wrong assumption) rather than keeping an “arm’s length” relationship with those the government regulates?