Make health advice public
Ontario’s auditor general delivered a stinging indictment of the Ford government’s handling of the pandemic. Then Premier Doug Ford slammed Bonnie Lysyk for straying from her financial lane, wasting the government’s time in a pandemic and throwing “hand grenades” at the chief medical officer.
As if figuring our way through the pandemic wasn’t hard enough already, what are we supposed to make of all this?
Lysyk says Ontario’s early COVID-19 response was “slower and more reactive” because of outdated pandemic plans and IT systems, insufficient lab capacity and staffing shortages. The government compounded problems, she adds, by paying a consultant $1.6 million to come up with a “cumbersome” decision-making structure.
Most damning of all, Lysyk says: “The Chief Medical Officer of Health (Dr. David Williams) and other public health officials did not lead Ontario’s response to COVID-19.”
By their very nature auditor generals are predisposed to be difficult for governments and, certainly, not everything in their reports should be taken as gospel. Governments routinely quibble about being treated unfairly, and on occasion they’re right.
But what stands out in Lysyk’s COVID-19 Preparedness and Management Special Report is that Ontario was unprepared because successive governments over the past 15 years didn’t do enough based on the lessons of the 2003 SARS crisis. The government’s response was “disorganized and inconsistent” and public health officials were sidelined from leadership roles. She’s hardly the first person to say any of that.
Leave aside the squabbling between Ford and Lysyk. What matters most right now, in the midst of a difficult second wave, is whether public health really is at the centre of Ontario’s planning and the determining factor when it comes to pandemic measures and restrictions. And there’s an easy fix for that long-standing concern.
It’s called transparency. The advice that Williams and the public health measures table give Ford and his cabinet should be made public. It’s that simple.
The public has a right to know what these experts, who we’re told make the crucial decisions that affect people’s lives and livelihoods, are saying.
The Ford government doesn’t just tell the public whether COVID cases are up or down; it makes the raw data public so people can see it for themselves. That helps build trust. It should be no different with the all-important health recommendations made to cabinet.
Many have called for making this advice public — including officials who sit at the government’s health table, countless doctors and academics, and the Star’s editorial page. The auditor general has now added her voice.
So why won’t Ford do it?
When asked (again) on Wednesday the premier said he’d talk to his cabinet about it, and then proceeded to show that he clearly doesn’t think it’s necessary.
“I’m up here every single day being transparent with the public,” Ford said. “There is no secret here.”
If that’s the case, why are the public health officials who provide advice to the province bound by confidentially agreements? Why won’t Williams answer direct questions about what pandemic restrictions he has recommended?
Ford’s pat answer is that Williams rides “shotgun” with him and “there is no daylight between us.”
At this point, though, there’s no reason for Ontarians to have much confidence in that without evidence. All they have right now is Ford’s claim that he always follows the advice he gets from Williams and the health table. And everyone else bound by a vow of silence.
Whether the premier likes it or not, Lysyk’s report adds to public concern about how his government is handling the pandemic and fuels suspicions that political calculations, more than public health, are behind decision-making.
Instead of railing against the auditor and telling her to “stick with the number-crunching,” Ford should address the real concern and make public health advice public. It’s long overdue.
Bonnie Lysyk’s report adds to public concern about how the Ford government is handling the pandemic