Fraud & Waste Hotline

The Hotline is intended to be used by any Hamilton resident or City of Hamilton employee. Employees and contractors/vendors of the City of Hamilton may use the hotline without fear of reprisal under the Whistleblower By-Law.

The Hotline is operated independently by a third party (Whistleblower Security Inc.) and is accessible by phone or Internet, along with several other methods (mail, fax, email). You are not required to provide your name or any other personal information when submitting a report of suspected fraud or waste.

When making a report to the Fraud and Waste Hotline please provide as much information as possible to support the allegations. 

Try to provide the following information:

• Circumstances of the incident(s) noted (names, dates, times, places)
• Location of any available evidence (physical evidence or electronic records)
• Names and contact information of witnesses
• What funds, assets or resources were involved
• Who else may be aware of the incident
• If you have previously reported this incident

You can report anonymously through the following:

• Talking with an independent operator but opting not to provide any of your personal information. You will still receive a login and password to follow-up on the status of your report.
• Making a report via the online reporting process, but not opting not to provide any of your personal information. You will still receive a login and password to follow-up on the status of your report.
• Sending an anonymous letter to the P.O. Box address.

Please note that the Office of the Auditor General can only act on anonymous reports if sufficient information is provided to carry out a complete assessment. Reports need to be made in good faith and be about a specific incident and must, to the extent possible, include details such as who, what, when and where.

A preliminary assessment will be completed by the Auditor General’s Office for all reports submitted to the Fraud and Waste Hotline.

If there is insufficient information to complete an assessment, and the report was made anonymously, the Office of the Auditor General will pose additional questions via the case management system.  If you chose to provide your email address (which remains completely confidential within the system), you will receive an email notification when a reviewer from the Office of the Auditor General posts questions or comments regarding the report.

If you do not submit your email address as part of your report, you will not receive an automatic email confirmation but will instead use your unique login and password (which is automatically issued upon report submission) to access your report by periodically logging into the system.

If no response is received within 30 days of the request for additional information, the report will be closed.

Where contact information was provided, the Auditor General’s Office staff will try to obtain enough information to investigate or resolve the matter. An objective and impartial assessment will be conducted for each report.

If a report is actionable, the Office of the Auditor General does not disclose the specific action taken to the reporter nor do we disclose the nature of any disciplinary action taken by management. We are unable to provide reporters with any details as to the progress or outcomes of an assessment or investigation given the sensitive and personal nature of the information collected.

When the Auditor General or any Office of the Auditor General Staff is implicated in an incident, send the incident details directly to the City Manager at [email protected]