Whistleblowers who exposed problems at a federal green fund are calling for protection from possible professional or legal retaliation.
A group of whistleblowers who reported problems at Sustainable Development Technology Canada are calling on the federal government to protect them from possible reprisals.
Several of their allegations were validated by a recent report from an outside consulting firm, Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton. The firm was hired to look into the whistleblowers' complaints by the federal department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada . In their report, investigators raised questions about SDTC's decision to distribute $38 million in emergency "relief payments" in 2020 and 2021 to companies with which it had previous funding agreements.
"ISED has no authority in matters pertaining to the management of human resources at SDTC," a senior official told the whistleblowers, according to an email obtained by Radio-Canada."ISED and the federal government are providing no protection to any of the whistleblowers, even though they've been fully vindicated by the report across all of the allegations that they made," he said in a recent letter.
An SDTC official said that in most cases, those who signed non-disclosure agreements did not leave the organization voluntarily.