12 May 2004

Subject CBC to whistle-blower law;
address employee concerns, says Guild

Canadian Media Guild | TNG Canada Local 30213

Canadian Media Guild representatives will attempt Thursday to convince federal politicians that proposed whistle-blower legislation must apply to the CBC but that it needs to better address employees' concerns.

The TNG Canada/CWA Local is also calling on Corporation president Robert Rabinovitch to re-examine his objections to Bill C-25, which leave the impression that the CBC doesn't believe it needs to be as transparent as other organizations in the public sector.

The Guild has already raised its concerns about Bill C-25 in two public settings: in early March at a roundtable, and later at a meeting of federal-sector unions, after the Bill had gone through first reading. The Guild is scheduled to appear before the Government Operations Committee tomorrow.

Rabinovitch speaks of his concerns with the proposed legislation in a letter to the federal government and asks that the CBC be removed from the list of Crown Corporations that would be subject to the law.

The Guild disagrees fundamentally with Rabinovitch's position, which appears to be that, by being subject to a federal law that applies to all Crown corporations, the CBC and its employees would somehow be unable to be neutral enough to fulfil their mandate of informing Canadians.

Bill C-25 is meant to deal with public servants, including employees of Crown corporations. CBC employees are public servants in that the Corporation was created by a government Act to fulfil a public mandate and it is funded by taxpayers. Rabinovitch seems to believe that being a public servant means that one must be directly employed by the government. CBC employees are not government employees, but the Guild believes that employees of a national public broadcaster such as the CBC can and must be seen as public servants.

Rabinovitch states correctly that the CBC needs to be objective and fully independent of government. However, the Guild maintains that that does not mean that CBC employees should be denied the right to speak out about wrongdoing. Given that the Corporation is already exempted from the Access to Information Act, it is imperative that employees have some avenue to speak out, and some measure of protection if and when they find it necessary to blow the whistle on wrongdoing. The Guild has long argued for a more open and transparent management culture at the CBC.

Although the Guild disagrees with Rabinovitch's reasoning, it does not whole-heartedly endorse Bill C-25 in its current form. For example, as the Bill stands, an employee who believes that wrongdoing is happening or about to happen would be obliged to raise those concerns internally before going to any federal officer or to an outside media outlet. Although this respects the principle of the duty of loyalty to the employer, the Guild believes that employees might be discouraged from revealing any wrongdoing if the dirty laundry has to be aired internally first.

Furthermore, in cases where an employee suffers reprisals (disciplinary action, harassment or dismissal), resolving the issue would mean going through either the internal grievance/arbitration process or by way of a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board. Neither of those solutions offers the degree of protection CBC employees, and all other public servants, deserve.

(This story first appeared on the Canadian Media Guild web site.)