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Halton Hills is taking its first formal step toward creating a whistleblower policy, following unanimous support from council.
Coun. Jason Brass brought forward a resolution March 9 that directs town staff to investigate how whistleblower programs operate in other municipalities and report back on what would be required to implement a similar framework in Halton Hills.
“Strengthening accountability mechanisms is not about assuming any wrongdoing by staff whatsoever,” Brass said. “It is about ensuring strong systems are in place to prevent it.”
Under the motion, staff will examine:
- Legal considerations around whistleblower reporting.
- Implementation options, including potential use of an independent third-party provider.
- Alignment with existing town policies, such as the code of conduct and workplace policies.
- Practical measures to ensure confidentiality, support anonymity where appropriate and protect against reprisals.
- Estimated implementation and ongoing costs of operating the program.
The findings will be compiled into a staff report expected to come before council by July 13.
When asked whether that deadline was realistic, Chris Mills, the town’s chief administrative officer, said staff would work to meet the timeline but committed to providing an interim report if all research could not be completed by that date.
“There does seem to be a number of comparable municipalities that have gone down this road,” Mills said. “So I would expect that we would learn as much as we could from them and not have to reinvent the processes or the research that was previously conducted.”
The motion followed a discussion during the Feb. 17 council meeting where the town’s external auditors, KPMG, raised a question of whether Halton Hills had a whistleblower policy in place.
Coun. D’Arcy Keene said the exchange with the auditors underscored the need for a formal framework.
“I was a bit surprised when we had the audit committee report from KPMG, that they didn’t know whether or not we had a whistleblowing policy or not,” Keene said. “Turns out we didn’t and it seemed like a good idea to implement one.”
Coun. Matt Kindbom noted that any whistleblower policy must be written in a way staff and the public can easily understand.
He cautioned that even a technically sound policy can fail if it is buried in legal jargon and said the policy should either be drafted in plain language or accompanied by a plain-language guide to ensure it can be used effectively by both those submitting concerns and those evaluating them.
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