Just blow it

I’m hearing a lot about whistles these days.

Talk of whistles being blown. Or soon to be blown. Pictures of whistles. Talk of other people’s whistles. They want me to blow the whistle. They want me to support them in their whistle blowing. Everyone is drawing a breath, getting ready to blow! Hear that? We are almost blowing now!

The CBC Lockout Drone web site has reams and reams of this, served up with plenty of melodramatic propaganda. Apparently it takes 5 people to write that site. Unfortunately for the reader, there is no editor in this unholy cabal.

But if you want to blow the whistle, it’s not as hard as you might think. The CBC actually has a policy on it, adapted from Bill C-25, the so-called “Whistleblower Bill of Rights.”

It’s Policy 2.9.4: Disclosure of Wrongdoings. It goes like this:

It is in the public interest to maintain confidence in the integrity of the operation of the CBC/Radio-Canada as Canada ‘s public broadcaster. CBC/Radio-Canada’s internal controls and operating procedures are intended to detect and to prevent or deter improper activities; however, at times these systems may not provide perfect safeguards against improper conduct. CBC/Radio-Canada Employees owe a duty of loyalty to their employer which includes a responsibility to bring to the attention of the Corporation instances of Wrongdoing.

And by “Wrongdoing” they mean:

  1. a violation of any law or regulation that applies to working at CBC/Radio-Canada;
  2. a misuse of CBC/Radio-Canada funds or assets;
  3. gross mismanagement of CBC/Radio-Canada resources
  4. an act or omission that creates a substantial and specific danger to the life, health and safety of individuals at the CBC/Radio-Canada workplace.
  5. reprisal against an Employee.

Note that you can’t blow the whistle on someone who is simply an asshole. If that were true, David Suzuki would have been sent to the clink in the 80’s.

So how do you do it?

You can start by contacting the Disclosure Information Officer at 1-866-340-9983 (toll free, M to F between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. EST). There is supposed to be a human at the end of this line between those posted hours.

You can also email him/her at internal_disclosure@cbc.ca, or send him/her a letter at:

Disclosure Information Officer
CBC/Radio-Canada
P.O. Box 3220 Station C
Ottawa , ON
K1Y 1E4

If you think your dirt is too hot for that mere notetaker, you can send it to the Senior Disclosure Information Officer (and CBC SMC member), Pierre Nollet, at pierre_nollet@radio-canada.ca, or send him a letter at:

Pierre Nollet
Vice-President, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary
Law Department
CBC/Radio-Canada
P.O. Box 3220 Station C
Ottawa , ON
K1Y 1E4

Some may question the logic of sending corporation-crushing dirt to the very corp they are trying to crush. If this is the case, write Pierre and demand he put you in contact with the Independent Disclosure Information Officer, Jean-Pierre Soublière.

That’s the official channel, anyways. You could also just email Jean-Pierre directly at jp@soubliere.com and tell him your story.

So there’s your whistle, drones. Grab it with both hands, blow like Dizzie Gillespie, and put us all out of our misery.

20 Comments

  • Anonymous says:

    Why is it that everyone’s picking on poor little Bobby, Dickie and Jane – oh, and Curious George & Freddy Krueger too.

    There’s a lot of top brass that need to be put under the microscope too:

    http://www.cbc.radio-canada.ca/about/smc/pdf/smc2005_e.pdf

  • George Clinton says:

    Tear the roof off the sucker.

  • Anonymous says:

    Ouimet, I’ve got to tell you you’ve been a big disappointment. So you’re on the inside? You have yet to tell me something I don’t know. Not one juicy little bit of info. What are you seeing? What are you hearing? Where’s the beef?
    Also- I hated that little tirade where you,
    not subtley, tried to pit young against old (remember? Over fifty equals deadwood?) And your attempt to discredit our good friend Mr. Drone and redirect his traffic- well it is amusing but I think I’ll keep reading him anyway. He is undoubtedly a conspiracy theorist butI believe he’s one of us, and hence- unlike you- gets the benefit of the doubt.
    By the way, were you at the bar for the $1200 soiree the other night?
    Was a good time had by all?

  • Anonymous says:

    Hey a new meaning to that old song used in a TV ad: “Whistle While You Work…Whistle While You Work…”

    Yes even after we go back inside there will be alot of cleaning on the top floor in the bedroom suite.

  • anonymous2199 says:

    Gosh. Everybody wants to blow something these days. Makes a girl tired just contemplating all of the possibilities.

    But I’™m with Aigle. Sure, I’™ve observed my share of shameful leadership louse ups during my time with the Corp. But now’™s hardly the time to drag those skeletons out of the closet.

    Currently’¦ (I miss The Voice)’¦ hounding the negotiators for a deal’™s our best bet. Once we’™re sitting pretty back in our cubicles we can put our lips together and doing a little whistling.

  • Aigle De Nuit says:

    Ummm, I don’t lie on my timesheet unless not having a specific code counts…Cabs, being high,l/d calls…I WISH.

    Never needed CBC to get guys…that’s really pretty funny if you know me.

    So I guess I could blow a few whistles safely…my question is why on earth would I?

    Right now, I’m worried about the Endgame and the survival of CBC.

    It won’t be easy and I’ll never look at work in the same way but the lockout has made changes in my life that would make any whistleblowing pale by comparison(we’re talking albino).

    Whistleblowing and a scandalous post-mortem is easy…creating 5,497 versions of me…is the tricky part.
    -Aigle a.k.a “Bride of the Lockout”

  • Nonamuss says:

    I don’t think whistleblower protection is designed to catch chickenshit like faking cab slips. I also think that in this climate of distrust between mgt and workerbees, Pierre Nollet will have lots of time to practice hitting the trash can from beyond the arc.

    What whistleblower protection really needs to be effective is public accountability at the end. CBC doesn’t want that. Imagine a newspaper reporter inquiring into what complaints were received and how they were dealt with. Sorry, they’ll say, we’d love to tell you, but it’s an internal affair.

  • Anonymous says:

    Yeah, ok Ouimet. Anyone who has something to say about mismanagement will be lined up to do it through the official channels. Are you on crack? Is that what all you guys have been doing while inside? Or is that just the side effects of drinking too much Kool-Aid?

  • Anonymous says:

    Ouimet – Bobby raised flags when he attempted last year to exempt the CBC from WhistleBlowing legislation. BIG MISTAKE and many eyes have been watching since!
    Today’s Globe & Mail ad shows management’s feeble & desperate attempt to get some political support by blindsighting the public and MP’s at the breakfast table. Pityful but what do you expect from CBC as always.
    Union negotiators STAND FIRM. Do not cave in as political support caves in on Bobby during the next days.

    I hear Bobby gringes every time his cellphone rings. Stay Tuned Bobby – the best is yet to come !

  • Anonymous says:

    Who should I talk to about the money CBC wasted on today’s Globe ad?

    You know, the ad that costs about a year of my wages.

    When I get back I plan to work hard for a year so I can save up for a Globe ad too.

    They just don’t get it.

  • Matt Watts says:

    I agree, but shorter and funnier.

  • patrick says:

    I’m curious how you came to your considered(?) opinion of David Suzuki.

  • Anonymous says:

    Well put, about the dirtbombs and all that. I myself am guilty of a thousand transgressions. I’ve mastered the system to the point where I get all my work done efficiently and to everyone’s apparent satisfaction, then I fuck off until more work comes down the pipe, or until I propose something new that I can work on. The self motivation is the perfect cover up for a basic disdain of the soul-erasing impersonality of the corporate setup. No one suspects a thing.

    No good can come of an investigation, I tell ya. Nothing but trouble. We’ll all be exposed as the frauds we truly are… myself included. Bring back the CBC we know and love. Canadians can watch the shows they are used to watching. Same goes for those of us who sail the CBC, captain and crew alike!

  • Anonymous says:

    Toronto CMG President and two others were on private property tonight,illegally. Attempting to discern whether or not there was a CBC truck at a work site. Nice work. There’s some explain to do Lucy….

  • cbcworkerbee says:

    Damned by faint praise. But thanks for the link. :-)

  • jenkew says:

    Actually, I miss the old site. This reminds me of all the interior decorating magazines that tell me how to be hip. I guess I just don’t like yellow and pink together.

    I was also following the 12-year-middle-manager post below here, all the while feeling like that little bird in the children’s book who walks around saying “are you my mother? are you my mother?…”

    “Are you my manager? Are you my manager?”

  • TribbleKat says:

    Anonymous 3: So you trust everything you read on the Web, do you?

    Allrighty, then:
    http://www.bonsaikitten.com/

  • Anonymous says:

    Yea, tribblekat brother or sister, you are right to doubt. This info MUST all be part of some trap, a high-level scheme designed to win my trust just as the icepick is about to smash my thin little skull. Vwery twicky, Ouimet (if that’s even your name!), but we are on to you.

  • Anonymous says:

    before eveyone in the schoolard starts throwing dirtbombs take stock of your own indiscretions….ever been high on the job? ever phonied up a cab receipt? ever made long distance calls from work? ever edited your cousins wedding video at work? ever called in sick to play golf? ever lied on your time card? ever used your position for personal gain outside of work….’hi baby…wanna be on tv?’…
    for goodness sake, working for the government in any department, cbc, highways, c.s.i.s…..is the same, the worker bees find a way to get the job done despite the bureaucracy, find a way to beat the system to get your stuff on the air, you do it all the time..
    stop whining, dont be a rat because it opens up a maelstrom of investigations, and not everyone reading this is a clean as they should be.

  • TribbleKat says:

    Nice redesign.
    (I’m still pretty sure I don’t trust you, but I appreciate the aesthetic improvement…)

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