By Gazette Staff
December 4th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
Mayor Meed Ward commented on the whistleblower policy. She had a huge thank you to the team for their work on this. “This is an incredibly important piece of work to ensure that people have the freedom and the respect and the confidentiality required to report items that may be to the detriment of the city and the city services that we provide. I understand that it is scheduled for implementation pending approval of the budget, which we approved earlier this week. So full steam ahead, this will take effect in Q2 of 2026.
Mayor Meed Ward: Staff will have the freedom, respect and the confidentiality required to report items that may be to the detriment of the city.
This was the first we heard of this policy.
Audit Committee Chair Lisa Kearns had an: Okay, echo that. Thank you very much. We have examples of neighboring municipalities that have had discoveries and that have led to better stewardship of tax dollars and better protection for employees. So looking forward to this implementation next year.
Background:
SUBJECT: Whistleblower Policy & Program update
TO: Audit Committee
FROM: Corporate Affairs
City Auditor
Date to Committee: December 3, 2025
Date to Council: December 9, 2025
Recommendation:
Receive for information office of the city auditor report AUD-15-25 regarding an update about the Whistleblower Policy & Program identified in the 2025 Annual Audit Plan.
Purpose of report:
Work towards designing and developing the Whistleblower Policy was approved by Audit Committee as a part of the 2025 Audit Plan; this report provides Audit Committee with a status update.
Key findings:
A Whistleblower Policy & Program was designed based on leading practices implemented in other mid-sized and large Canadian municipalities. This policy was approved by the CAO and XLT in August 2025
City Auditor: Maciej Jurczyk
The Whistleblower Policy will allow City staff who fear reprisal to confidentially report an issue of wrongdoing to the City Auditor and Chief Human Resources Officer
The Whistleblower Program is scheduled for implementation in Q2 2026, pending Council approval of the 2026 operating budget
A procurement process to source a service provider which will host an online confidential whistleblower hotline/portal will proceed immediately following Council’s approval of the 2026 budget on Dec 2, 2025
Implications:
The City Auditor and staff from Human Resources are leading this initiative; however, multiple staff from Legal Services, Procurement, Information Governance and Burlington Digital Services have been impacted and provided support.
An operating budget of $13,000 was requested from Council through the 2026 budget process
There are no climate-related implications.
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The first complaint should be against are nauseating virtue signalling Liberal Mayor Once that happens this program will be cancelled
Maybe there should be a “Whistleblower Portal for Burlington Residents as well”.
Where Burlington residents can report the wastefull and unnecessary spending by the City of Burlington Mayor and Council that exists in our community on an ongoing basis year over year.
Too many to mention, but here is a short partial list to mention a few:
The Food for Feedback Event (and not restricted to Burlington residents only); Love Your Neighbour program; Community Projects at $10,000.00 plus per application; City of Burlington Billboards all over Burlington advertising all of these free events, and projects and grants; Multiple Flag raisings at City Hall taking up both staff scheduling time and council member time to schedule and raise and lower flags; the Mayor’s published colour printed Calendar for 2025 (which had to be printed twice due to an error); the Mayor’s 2026 published colour printed Calendar. (what was the cost for both of these calendars? Is this Not just free promtion for our mayor disquised as a Calendar? And should it be allowed on our Dime? especially in an Election Year? Election October 2026)
Council’s Trip to Japan 2025 (our mayor and some councillors were included as well as the Mundalization Committee; Council Trip to Apeldoorn, the Netherlands (our mayor and some councillors attended including the Mundalization Committee). Mayor MMW’s trip to Washington DC, re Tariffs in 2025.
All of these expenditures are all added to our Property Tax Budgets year over year.
There are too many to mention here!
None these expenditures are needed or necessary. Residents have had to cut back, and so should the City of Burlington.