Question

The purpose of the Federal Accountability Act is to:

A. ensure that whistle-blowers within the government receive due recognition and reward.
B. protect government employees from reprisal for making good faith allegations of wrongdoing.
C. restrict the investigation of any wrongdoing that occurs within the public sector.
D. ensure that any corporate whistle-blower in Canada is reimbursed for lost wages if they are fired by their employers.

Answer 1

The Federal Accountability Act was established primarily to protect government employees, ensuring they can report misconduct without fear of reprisal.

Step-by-step explanation:

The purpose of the Federal Accountability Act is to protect government employees from reprisal for making good faith allegations of wrongdoing.

In response to corruption and inefficiency in the 1970s, Congress acted to safeguard federal whistleblowers through legislation like the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, which set up protections and created the Merit Systems Protection Board. Following that, the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989 and the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2012 further strengthened these protections.

While other acts, like the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, were designed to increase confidence in financial information and protect investors from accounting fraud, they apply to the corporate sector and not specifically within government agencies.