In her article "Shooting the messenger: Why canadians don't often blow the whistle on wrongdoing" Suanne Kelman tackles the Canadian stigma regarding whistleblowing (i.e. the unauthorized disclosure of information that is deemed illegal, dishonest or immoral within a public or private organization). In 2011 a flood of leaked documents was released by a website called Wikileaks. After going through the documents Kelman noticed that almost none of them contained any cases of canadian government corruption. In this article, Kelman attempts to explain why there are so few Canadian whistleblowers. Kelman begins by stating that there is a rooted belief among the majority of Canadians that "whistleblowing is not nice"(200). Her aim is to question this belief and to spark a discourse among well-educated and prosperous Canadians. Kelman prescribes that whistleblowers ought to be celebrated as national heroes rather than demonized as traitors to the Canadian establishment. Her ideas form quite a persuasive argument through her incorporation of rhetorical devices. She makes her strongest rhetorical appeal to logos, by providing a wide variety of well substantiated examples that display the positive repercussions of transparency. Coupled with her use of rhetorical questions, these examples set a subtle yet elaborate argument, designed to prompt readers into concluding, for themselves, that whistleblowers are vital to a healthy democracy. …show more content…
In addition, Kelman uses a rather blunt critique of Canadian society, which could have the effect of either alienating some of her audience, or provoking them to make a difference in their