Not all whistleblower laws inspire bureaucrats: A Canadian experience

FIVE years after a whistleblower law was passed in New Brunswick, one of the Maritime provinces of Canada, there is virtually no taker. The Public Interest Disclosure Act, popularly called whistleblower law, was introduced in 2007 to allow civil servants to report illegal or dangerous actions by their co-workers. But…
it has rarely been used, forcing the province’s acting ombudsman to lament that he had received only seven calls during the last one year, and that too, the calls pertained to asking more information about the law rather than reporting any wrong-doing! So, what went wrong to the whistle-blowing venture in Canada? And is there a learning lesson for India which will soon have a similar piece of law?
A report published in CBC News quoted a Liberal MLA from the province to say that civil servants are still uneasy about coming forward with information about their colleagues. “It's going to be difficult for somebody to feel 100 per cent comfortable doing something like that,” the MLA was quoted as saying.
Now, legislators have a reason to believe that the provisions of the act are not tough enough for the bureaucrats to come forward against their own colleagues. Legislators and officers say the act needs to be tightened by adding punishments for those who retaliate against whistleblowers.

Action and Appointments
a) The competent authority has approved the proposal for extension of Central deputation tenure of Pankaj Joshi, a 1989 batch Gujarat cadre IAS, as joint secretary in the ministry of social justice and empowerment for a period beyond June 20, 2013 and up to the end of the 11-month-long 53rd NDC course on defence internal security at the National Defence College, New Delhi which began on January 7, 2013.