Whistleblower Legislation

Sources today report that the Prime Minister intends to table legislation to create the new Office of Public Prosecutions early in the next session when Parliament reconvenes. This new office will deal with whistleblower protection over fraud and corruption in the Civil Service, their contractors and its political masters the Government. Today's reports also include a proposal by Pierre Poilivre MP of Nepean Carleton, and Parliamentary Secretary to John Baird, President of the Treasury Board who together wish to introduce a parliamentary bill to make law a private citizen's right to have a guilty contractor or bureaucratic body charged in a federal court of law. We have just seen in the evidence of the Gomery inquiry the fallen government's reluctance to have their own friends charged for their fraudulent illegal activities. The new proposal would see those private citizens who feel strongly enough to have a defendant entity charged with fraud, also have in their possession a sufficient body of evidence to litigate without fear of loss of case. This would deter would-be profiteering of any private citizen for the benefit of his/her own advancement if the cause for suit was anything less than airtight. If the suit were successfully won the convicted defendant would be forced to make restitution to the sum of three times the amount of the fraud originally perpetrated. A certain percentage of this remuneration to the government would then be awarded to the plaintiff as a reward for funds otherwise lost through fraud and never recovered, except through the actions of the whistleblower's courage and conviction. If this newly proposed legislation did nothing more it would serve to make any illegitimate intentions contemplated by those in a position to do so, far less attractive if not most foolhardy.