The culture of secrecy in the Canadian civil service should be a breeding ground for whistleblowers. At least that is what one might think.

But the numbers tell a different story. In Canada, close to 60 per cent of the civil service polled in a survey say they are willing to close their eyes to negligence and corruption by their bosses and plug away at their jobs.

Startling is it not when our public servants say they will continue slurping the soup even if there is a fly in it.

This apathy stems from leadership by example. If the boss closes his eyes to abuse why should the servant take the risk of exposing it. And there is no better example of a immoral leadership than Jean Chretien.

He promised during the election campaign a government of values and integrity.

Something obviously happened on the way to his office. Take for example his attack on non-partisan public servants like John Reid, the Information Commissioner.

Reid reported that Chretien's office improperly interfered in access to information requests filed by private citizens. He said Chretien's office regularly stonewalled, starved his office of funds, and went to court to stop him doing his work.

Worse, Reid said Chretien's aides threatened commission staff, promising to ruin the careers of those who persisted in asking embarrassing questions.

Chretien showed no remorse, refused to desist, and challenged the whistleblowers to come out and identify themselves"hardly likely, given that their livelihoods had been threatened.

Then there is Denis Desautels, the Auditor-General, who exposed the misuse and abuse of money and citizens' trust by a government shoveling tax dollars to unworthy friends and hopeless causes.

Desautels was so upset by his findings he dedicated an entire chapter of the report to the decline in ethics and trustworthiness of Chretien's cabinet and top bureaucrats.

Chretien's response was to snub the report and his Liberal MPs failed to turn up when the A-G was to table his report in committee saying they did not know which room on Parliament Hill the event was taking place.

The breathtaking arrogance of the government combined with the profound nonchalance of the Canadian public has created an environment where potential whistleblowers have been forced to suffer in silence.

Those few who dare speak out like Joanna Gualtieri are hounded into a state of mental breakdowns and financial ruin.

Our government allows corruption, mismanagement, cover-ups and abuse while threatening those who speak out. This environment, as seen in other nations, is the precursor to insecurity.

Given the state of affairs in our governance, whistleblowers in the public service are vital to keeping the system clean, and in enabling the authorities to combat crime and corrupt practices. So what does Chretien do Instead of encouraging and rewarding whistleblowers, he does the opposite. His Liberal government has doggedly refused to enact any kind of legislative framework to protect whistleblowers. Senators and MPs like Surrey's Gurmant Grewal have put forward bills to enable whistleblower legislation but all have died on the order paper.

It was only after much pressure that the Chretien government hired a so-called watchdog for public service whistleblowers.

But even that watchdog, Edward Keyserlingk, who has already got 40 complaints, is concerned that there are no laws to protect whistleblowers. Without laws to protect whistleblowers the United States in a study found that the consequences can be severe.

That study suggested 82% of whistleblowers were harassed, 60% were fired, 17% lost their homes and 10% attempted suicide. In the U.S., whistleblowers now not only get a degree of protection they can be paid handsomely for their efforts.

The False Claims Act allows informants up to 25% of a settlement against the government.

Last May, the United Kingdom, began a campaign to encourage workers to blow the whistle on colleagues and bosses guilty of financial malpractice, drawing lessons from the scandals that brought down Barings bank and Enron Corp.

That whistleblowing initiative, backed by legislation to protect those who ring the alarm, is a win, win, for everyone, even the firms and government agencies involved.

This is because the decision to encourage workers to blow the whistle internally in the first place means that senior management will be the first, not the last, to know about potential problems.

While the U.S. and the U.K make huge strides to protect whistleblowers, the Chretien government lags behind pathetically giving rise to suspicion that it has a lot to hide.

Canada desperately needs a law to protect the courageous individuals who denounce and document bureaucratic misconduct. They need it to protect them from the likes of Chretien and his cronies.