Advancing protections for whistleblowers
In December 2025, the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act (PSDPA) Review Task Force submitted a report to the President of the Treasury Board, making recommendations which aim to improve the federal disclosure process to better protect and empower public servants to come forward with cases of potential wrongdoing without fear of reprisal.
The PSDPA Review Task Force was composed of eight individuals, including ACFO-ACAF’s Director of Labour Relations and General Counsel, Scott Chamberlain.
The Task Force made a total of 35 recommendations for improvements to the PSDPA, which can be categorized into three themes:
- Strengthening protections for disclosers;
- Increasing legal support for disclosers and victims of reprisal; and
- Expanding protections for victims of reprisal.
The full report has been published and is available at this link.
If adopted, the recommendations made by the Task Force are a positive step towards reshaping the PSDPA and providing public servants with a secure and confidential process for disclosing wrongdoing in the workplace, as well as protection from acts of reprisal.
The process for reporting wrongdoing
As part of improving the PSDPA, the Task Force surveyed more than 3,000 public servants to understand their knowledge of the Act. The results showed that more than half are unfamiliar with the process for reporting wrongdoing, with 35% not at all, and 23% only slightly.
Public servants have three channels that can be used to make a disclosure of wrongdoing, which are through:
- Their supervisor;
- The Senior Officer designated for internal disclosure in their organization; or
- The Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner of Canada (PSIC).
If you have questions about the process of reporting wrongdoing, check out these FAQs on the PSIC website.
If you’re still unsure about how to make a disclosure, reach out to ACFO-ACAF Labour Relations, and our staff will walk you through the process. Any correspondence you have with us is 100% confidential, so simply having a conversation with us can do no harm – at every step along the way, the choice is yours.