| The CBC, CTV and the Globe & Mail During the Richard Colvin Affair, Allan Cutler was invited to appear on The Hour to discuss whistleblowers, which Colvin denied he was. Allan asked me to summarize in a few words my story which he would mention if the opportunity arose. His appearance was cancelled at the last minute. In a letter to The Hour I included the summary I had prepared for Allan and dropped it off along with a copy of Shooting the Messenger at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s (CBC) headquarters in Ottawa, a fifteen minute walk from my home. The young woman at the reception desk promised that someone who looked into “stuff received in brown paper envelopes” would get it that afternoon. I am sure she did her job. December 2, 2009 The CBC The Hour 181 Queen Street Ottawa, ON K1P 1K9 To Whom It May Concern, Allan Cutler, who was scheduled to appear on The Hour on Thursday to talk about the Colvin affair, had asked me to provide him with a short summary of what Foreign Affairs did to the protagonist of Shooting the Messenger as an example of how the Department has dealt with whistleblowers in the past. The gist of it, and dealing only with the deception used to rid themselves of the whistleblower (there was a whole lot more going on) is as follows: In the early 1980’s, a financial systems analyst with the Department of Foreign Affairs wrote a computer program which analyzed hundreds of thousands of financial transactions and discovered that in 1983 Foreign Affairs staff had defrauded the taxpayer of more than seven million dollars and that the fraud had been going on for many years. He reported his findings to management. In the course of time, they denied him access to the central computer which he had used to perform the millions of calculations and where the financial records were stored, moved him to a small out-of-the-way office, gave him a pad, a pencil and an adding machine and told him to re-do his calculations manually from memory and have a report on his manager’s desk before the end of the month When he failed to do the impossible they fired him for insubordination claiming he was deliberately withholding information vital to the Department. Please accept a complimentary copy of Shooting the Messenger, the true story of the largest known sustained fraud by public servants in the history of Canada. Sincerely Bernard Payeur Perhaps I should not have addressed it To Whom It May Concern as To Whom It May Concern has yet to get back to me. I was only slightly more precise as to whom I wanted to receive my whistleblower’s tale when I first wrote to the CBC a year earlier. I addressed that letter to my Dear Fifth Estate reporters and producers. December 9, 2008 The Fifth Estate PO Box 500, Stn.'A' Toronto, Ontario M5W 1E6 Dear Fifth Estate reporters and producers, It gives me great pleasure to present you with Shooting the Messenger, A Whistleblower's Tale (more copies available on request). A Whistleblower's Tale is the true story of a whistleblower at the prestigious Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. It is a statement about politics, morality and ethics in government. It is an account of how career diplomats and other high ranking government officials broke the law in a most egregious manner and in the process compromised our judicial system and the reputation of a respected former Prime Minister in an effort to cover up what they had done. A Whistleblower's Tale is more than a cautionary tale which Canadians who care about stopping corruption within the upper echelons of the Public Service should read; it is also about getting justice for the whistleblower (or at least doing him justice). Les Brost of the Calgary Herald called the story of the first Foreign Affairs’ whistleblower “one of the most powerful, poignant stories I have ever heard.” Allan Cutler, the Sponsorship Scandal whistleblower, recommended the book to those who are interested in reading about “the dynamics of retaliation and workplace abuse that can, and still does happen.” A moving story! An enlightening tale! A quest for justice! What more can you ask for? Please get in touch. Sincerely Yours Bernard Payeur Maybe they thought it was a joke, or addressing it to so many people it fell through the cracks, which is why none of my Dear reporters and producers got in touch. Again, not even an acknowledgement that they had received anything. The fifth estate, according to the CBC, is Canada’s Premiere Investigative Series. Go figure. In the event that I could not get the attention of the producers and reporters of Canada’s Premiere Investigative Series, I also sent a copy of the letter to the fifth estate’s main competition W-Five (the w and five being a reminder about what real reporting is all about i.e. Who, What, Where, When and Why), but this time to an actual producer at CTV, a Mr. Malcolm Fox, the Executive Producer of W-Five. Almost two years later, I am still waiting for an acknowledgement from the man or at least his secretary. There is a concept in the workplace called mobbing. Mobbing is when an employee is bullied or ostracized, or both, at his place of work. My meeting with McGahey is about as good as bullying as mobbing gets. As to being ostracized, that's in the chapter No Future Here. Is it possible for a citizen to be “mobbed” by his country; that is ignored by one’s government, the courts and so on? Paranoia runs deep, but not that deep. I think there is a very simple explanation for an apparent lack of manners from Members of Parliament, the Senate, the Supreme Court, the Governor General, the media... and it’s a very human one. My story is a hot potato, a can of worms, minefield… pick your metaphor. To even acknowledge that they have received the book is to become part of the story. It’s not unlike someone who has witnessed a crime but does not want to help in the investigation fearing where it will end or the time it will take and therefore pretends he or she did not see or hear anything. Pity! ------------------ By writing about the lack of interest by the media am I not alerting the diplomats that they have nothing to fear? The diplomats knew that the blanket immunity from even substantiated accusations of misconduct by members of the fraternity was not in peril after the call from the Globe and Mail (read Investigative Journalism Canadian Style) and a simple “don’t believe anything he has to say” was sufficient to deflect any interest in my story If they thought I could generate even a modicum of interest in what happened at Foreign Affairs from the mainstream media, they would have gotten in touch to see how they could make things right. They have nothing to fear and they know it, I know it and now you know it. Reason enough to write about it. Bernard Payeur July 4, 2010
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