News March 12, 2025

CFE Creates Eminent Working Group on Whistleblower Protection in the Private Sector

The Centre for Free Expression (CFE) announced today that eight leading experts have agreed to join a new CFE working group on whistleblower protection in the Canadian private sector. 

“We are honoured to have such an eminent group join our working group and excited about the possibilities the group will create for CFE to more effectively identify and promote meaningful policies and best practices in the private sector to protect those who speak up about wrongdoing,” said James L. Turk, Director of the CFE. 

“We can only fix serious problems when we know about them, and whistleblowers are an important, often the only, way we can know.”

The working group will be chaired by Sandy Boucher, Corporate Investigator, Grant Thornton LLP Advisory Services. The members are Norman Baldwin, Managing Partner. GRC Vista Risk Consulting and MPF Specialized Research; Bonnie Bidgoli, Senior Director-Employee Conduct, Royal Bank of Canada; Dave Chu, Head of Integrity Remediation & Monitoring, AtkinsRéalis; Peter German, President and Executive Director, International Centre for Criminal Law Reform and Criminal Justice Policy; Anna Myers, Executive Director, Whistleblowing International Network (WIN); Jeffrey Simser, Barrister and Solicitor and senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute; and Michele Wood-Tweel, Vice-President, Regulatory Affairs, CPA Canada.

The Centre for Free Expression at Toronto Metropolitan University is a non-partisan platform focused on freedom of expression and the public’s right to know. CFE ‘s work consists in public education and engagement; commentaries; advocacy for law reform; working with courts; advising governments; and providing training and assistance for the protection and promotion of intellectual freedom, academic freedom, artistic freedom, public interest whistleblowing, and freedom of the press.

Related

Court Submission March 10, 2025

Ontario (Attorney General) v. Animal Justice et al. ONCA Court File No. COA-24-CV-0553

CFE Intervener Factum in the Ontario Court of Appeal This case concerns the Government of Ontario law, Security from Trespass and Protecting Food Safety Act, 2020, and associated Regulation whose stated purpose is to prevent trespass, protect animal safety, protect biosecurity of the food supply chain, protect those working with animals and prevent the adverse economic effects that these risks can create. The CFE intervention addresses how the Act and Regulation penalize employees who are prospective whistleblowers engaging in expressive activity in pursuit of truth and social discourse. The Act and Regulation also compel employee expression by mandating and controlling the timing of whistleblower disclosure. And although the Regulation purports to provide an exception for whistleblowers, it is so narrow as to be illusory.
Freedom of Expression & Its Limits, Whistleblower Protection