Portraits of red-flag raisers

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This article was published 18/11/2013 (4508 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — Sylvie Therrien now lives at a friend’s house because she can’t afford to pay rent after being fired from the federal public service.

“Anything they can do to have me on my knees, they do,” she says of her ex-employer.

Therrien was sacked for revealing there are quotas — $35,000 to $40,000 in clawed-back benefits each month — imposed on every public servant investigating employment insurance fraud.

Therrien says she’s convinced she was right to tell the news media about the quota earlier this year.

“It is not against the law,” she said in an interview in Vancouver. “And if the government has such a law where we are not allowed to tell the truth and be honest with the citizens we are supposed to work for, well then, it’s an unfair law and it should not be respected.”

Therrien said she had no other choice but to turn to the media after she tried to raise the issue internally and was rebuffed.

She says the law designed to protect her, as a whistleblower, should have meant congratulations, if not money. But Therrien says she never had faith in that law.

“So, what was I to do? I said maybe I should go to the commissioner of integrity. I know of some other civil servants who have gone all the way through the internal channel, all the way to the commissioner of integrity, that are without a job today… because they complained.”

The Public Service Alliance of Canada, her union, has filed a grievance against her firing. And a Quebec group of unemployed workers is organizing a campaign to help her financially.

“I am so touched by this. People have given over $12,000,” she said in an interview last week. The amount was nearing $20,000 by Friday. “And these are people, citizens, who say, ‘Too bad there aren’t more people like you.’ “

 

Allan Cutler

As a Public Works official, Allan Cutler protested the way the Liberal government’s sponsorship program was run and was demoted for his efforts. After the Gomery Commission investigated and praised his actions, Cutler became the poster child for whistleblowing. He ran for the Conservative party in the 2006 federal election and lost.

Cutler, a consultant today, is sharply critical of the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act and the Conservative government’s treatment of whistleblowers.

 

Richard Colvin

In fall 2009, Richard Colvin created a storm on Parliament Hill by telling a committee Canada failed to monitor detainee conditions in Afghanistan during his time as deputy ambassador from April 2006 to October 2007. He testified detainees transferred by Canadian soldiers to Afghan prisons were likely tortured. He told the committee he shared those thoughts in many reports to his superiors and colleagues, copying up to 75 people. Through all this, the Canadian government kept saying it was unaware of any allegations of torture.

At the time of his committee testimony, Colvin was stationed in Washington, D.C., as an intelligence officer at the Canadian Embassy. He remained there until fall 2011, when he returned to Ottawa. He was not assigned to a full-time job at the Foreign Affairs Department until September this year. He now works on Russian-Ukrainian-Canadian issues.

 

Jeffrey Monaghan

Jeffrey Monaghan, then a contract worker at Environment Canada, was arrested and handcuffed at his Ottawa workplace in May 2007 for allegedly leaking the Conservative government’s green plan to the news media. It was the last day of his contract. Monaghan was interrogated by the RCMP but never charged — and in 2008 launched a $50,000 lawsuit against the Mounties, saying his charter rights were violated. His lawyer claimed the Mounties were using the incident to silence other public servants. The lawsuit was later settled out of court, but on the condition neither side revealed the terms.

Monaghan is currently a PhD student at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont.

 

— The Canadian Press