Unlikely hero emerges
British Columbia’s top public health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry earns kudos
VANCOUVER — The coronavirus pandemic has provided the world an abundance of villains. Extravagant displays of incompetence, duplicity and blundering have made enemies of even the highest-profile health experts, figureheads and politicians, as the anxious and vulnerable endeavouring to navigate this crisis find some relief in blaming the leaders across the world stage.
But one individual in Canada has emerged through the COVID-19 pandemic as an unlikely super-star. Dr. Bonnie Henry is our hero.
British Columbia’s top public health officer is not an obvious candidate for the sort of nationwide hero-worship that has materialized around her. She is soft-spoken, even-tempered, lacking the emotional vigour that marks the oratory of most wartime leaders. In her daily addresses to the province, she is clear and concise, offering guidance with cool, unflagging reserve. But it is this calm, sensible, authoritative leadership that has prevailed upon the popular imagination in Canada — and elsewhere.
In a New York Times profile of Henry earlier this month, it praised her as “one of the most effective public health officials in the world,” serving as an inspiration and model “for nations struggling to emerge from lockdown.”
Speaking to the people of British Columbia on March 17, at the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak in the province and as the country at large went into damagecontrol mode, Henry tendered an exhortation that would become her trademark phrase: “This is our time to be kind, to be calm, and to be safe,” she said soberly.
You will find “Be Calm, Be Kind, Be Safe” on coffee mugs and coasters, on tank tops and T-shirts. A Vancouver jeweller has created a Henry-themed necklace called the “Bonnie Bee.” Various clothiers are producing plaques and commemorative towels. John Fluevog made a limitededition Dr. Henry shoe, which has her mantra stamped into the footstock; the proceeds from these and other sales are going to charity, in keeping with the spirit of philanthropy and civic responsibility.
Henry’s celebrity has already gone beyond simple merchandising. The Shaw Centre for the Salish Sea, an aquarium on Vancouver Island, named an octopus after Henry, in recognition of her “incredible grace, kindness, intelligence, compassion, dedication, and calm demeanor,” qualities, we assume, are evident in the budding mollusc as well.
And this week, it was announced that Henry is working with the ONE World Campaign to fight “COVID19 misinformation” with the actress Olivia Munn, a collaboration they are describing as “a superhero team-up” between Marvel’s Psylocke and Dr. Henry of “the B.C. Universe.” The unofficial Dr. Bonnie Henry Fan Club on Twitter, has more than 1,500 followers.
With heroic humility, Henry has been reluctant to accept her newfound fame and adulation. Of the Henry-branded merchandise and the emergence of “Be Calm, Be Kind, Be Safe” as a marketable slogan, she’s insisted that “it’s kind of a little disconcerting.” (Although she notes that she is “pleased the money is going to something important.”) One of the most admirable things about Henry is that, throughout her ascent to the stratosphere of admiration, she has remained averse to the dawning renown, preferring to keep the focus on the message.
She’s fine with fame — to the extent that it provides her a platform from which to advise Canadians and restrict the spread of COVID-19. This unwavering integrity is the secret to Henry’s prestige. How heroic is that?