Journalistic Sources/Whistleblowers

Overview

In this course, participants will be exposed to the recent legislative provisions governing the relationship between confidential sources and journalists both in the Canada Evidence Act and the Criminal Code, along with an analysis of some of the existing jurisprudence. This course will also enable you to understand the meaning of the term “whistleblower” in the context of an analysis of the applicable provisions of the Security of Information Act and the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act.

Learning Outcomes

• Understand the system aimed at protecting sources providing information to journalists on a confidential basis, and of its statutory exceptions as well.
• Understand the interplay between the Security of Information Act and the Public Servants Disclore Protection Act
• Distinguish between the protection afforded to leakers and whistleblowers, in certain circumstances, as provided for by either the Security of Information Act and the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act

Audience

• Public servants, lawyers, law enforcement, journalists, students with an interest in these areas, and anyone following the news.

Duration

Cost

• $655 (plus tax)

Featured Instructor

Gérard Normand was called to the Barreau du Québec in 1982. His career as counsel at the Department of Justice lasted 28 years, 25 of those in national security law. Original founding counsel of the National Security Group (NSG) in 1993, he spent two years there before moving to the CSIS Legal Services for 7 years in 1995. He came back to NSG in January 2002, after the events of September 11, 2001, where he became the Director and General Counsel of the Group, providing legal advice to the Deputy Minister of Justice on an ongoing basis, as well as to the RCMP officers involved in investigating terrorism offences. In 2006, he spent a year as the Director of Policy and Planning, Security and Intelligence at the Privy Council Office. He then served as the national security advisor of the Assistant Deputy Attorney General responsible for national security at the Ministry of Justice between 2007 and 2010. He finally spent 8 years as General Counsel responsible for the national security section at DND/CF. Since his retirement, he was, for some years, the special legal advisor to the NSICOP Secretariat and to the Intelligence Commissioner. He is also a professor of national security law at the Faculty of Law – Civil Law section at the University of Ottawa. He has been directly involved in the drafting of national security laws in Canada from 1993 to 2017.

Sessions