Welcome back to the podcast, bribe, swindle, or steel. I'm Alexandra Rogge. And for today's podcast,

I've edited a talk that I gave recently at the Vachi, that is, the Vancouver Anti-Corruption Institute's

whistleblower conference in Vancouver. It's an important issue in its own right, but it's also critical to encourage and protect

whistleblowers because it's one of the few ways we learn about corruption.

My area of expertise is corruption. It is not whistleblowing.

One of the things I'd like to do today is just put this issue in an international context, because one of the things that we know about corruption is that we won't learn about it if there aren't whistleblowers, and whistleblowers won't come forward if we can't protect them.

Stepping back a little bit and providing some of that international context, but the news is

grim.

There isn't good news on whistleblowers.

We wouldn't be having a conference of this kind if the goal was to talk about how we'd

solve the problem, how we were encouraging whistleblowers to come forward,

protecting them when they did, and ensuring that they had a long, full, and satisfying career

after the fact. Let me back up a little bit and take you well outside the borders of Canada

for a couple of minutes. Last August, Babita Dale Carran drove her daughter to school

through a leafy suburb in Johannesburg. And when she pulled into her driveway after returning,

a gunman jumped out and strafed her vehicle with bullets.

And nine of those perforated the vehicle hitting her and killing Babita.

She was a whistleblower.

She was the chief director of financial accounting at a regional South African Department

of Health.

And then the days before her murder, she flagged millions of

dollars in dodgy contracts intended for personal protective equipment and life-saving hospital supplies

...