News

The Centre for Free Expression at Ryerson University (CFE) has launched an independent investigation of the Phoenix Pay System debacle. The goal of the investigation is to determine if the devastating problems might have been prevented had there been adequate whistleblowing protection for public servants who could have safely alerted their superiors to the impending deficiencies and errors.

CFE’s David Hutton was featured prominently in CBC's excellent recent coverage of whistleblowing. The National profiled former federal civil servant Sylvie Therrien, fired for exposing the government’s pressure on fraud investigators to disentitle legitimate EI claimants.

The Center for Free Expression and the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression deplore the Ontario Government’s attempt to influence, through intimidation and the withholding of funds, the internal autonomous decision-making processes of Ontario universities and colleges in matters of free expression. 

Today, the Ontario Court of Appeal handed down six decisions that uphold and strengthen Ontario’s 2015 anti-SLAPP lawdesigned to ensure that defamation suits are not misused as a tool to silence discussion on matters in the public interest.

The Canadian Association of Journalists, the Centre for Free Expression, News Media Canada and the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression are inviting nominations for the Code of Silence Award for outstanding achievement in government secrecy. The award will be given annually in each of four categories -- federal, provincial, municipal and police services – starting this fall.

Good whistleblower protection could have prevented Phoenix, argues David Hutton. Calling the project an “incomprehensible failure,” Auditor General Michael Ferguson’s recent report on Phoenix describes not just a litany of outrageously bad and irresponsible decisions, but a stunning level of dishonesty among the senior executives responsible. For years—right from the start of the project—they knowingly hid important information and misled their superiors, concealing serious problems and risks. Here are just two examples: