Hajdu's tenure should be long over
At time of writing, it seems historians may have to live without a definitive answer to the question that gripped Canada's political obsessives on Sunday evening: Was federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu sufficiently engaged in eating or drinking to justify not wearing a mask at Toronto's Pearson Airport, where a spy photographed her barefaced and smiling?
This columnist is prepared to believe either version of events, or something in between. Hajdu phrased her defence rather oddly: “I wear my mask at all times at Toronto Pearson, and only take it off to eat or drink, as allowed,” she tweeted — a general policy rather than a response to a specific allegation.
But then, politicians often speak oddly for no apparent reason. The spy, who claims to work for Alberta Minister of Advanced Education Demetrios Nicolaides, alleges Hajdu was not eating or drinking, and that she made “multiple phone calls with (her) mask off.” But then, the spy doesn't even tweet under his own full name.
In normal times, the Canadian media would be more than capable of stringing the uncertainty out over multiple days' news cycles. But these are not normal times. The controversy, such as it is, will fade away. But this isn't the “nothingburger” many Liberal partisans will have you believe. Canadians were owed an explanation.
It matters on principle that ministers follow the rules. A not-insignificant number of us, even in COVID-19 hot zones, bristle at mask-wearing, or can't be bothered to do it properly. Just because they don't take positive cues from politicians doesn't mean they won't allow negative ones to reinforce their aversion or laziness.
It also speaks to solidarity: If you're going to impose or support restrictions on everyday life, you had better abide by them. It is entirely reasonable that you're allowed to unmask to eat a sandwich in an airport, but a great many restaurateurs in the Greater Toronto Area would say the same of their own establishments — and their governments have provided remarkably scant evidence to justify shutting down their dining rooms, for a second time, earlier this month.
It's not as if this would be Hajdu's first offence, either. At the same time she and her provincial counterparts at the Ontario legislature were telling Canadians to lock down, she took four round trips on a government Cessna from Ottawa home to Thunder Bay. She offered no examples of lockdown-compliant constituency business that could not have been conducted from the nation's capital.
And whatever happened in the airport lounge on Sunday, at this point in the pandemic, it is simply impossible to believe anything that comes out of Hajdu's mouth. The opposite thing too often follows directly behind.
Last week, the Winnipeg Free Press reported that much of the federal government had essentially downed tools on processing freedom-of-information requests. Conservative health critic Michelle Rempel Garner took up the issue with Hajdu during Question Period.
The minister began by taking offence: “Civil servants … have been working around the clock,” she huffed. Then she derided the inquiry itself: “Not once has a Canadian asked me to put more resources into freedom of information officers,” she insisted.
The next day, after Information Commissioner Caroline Maynard expressed her dismay, Hajdu threw the truck into reverse: “Openness and transparency are vital to our democracy,” she announced on Twitter. “We have additional staff (at the Ministry of Health) assigned to support Canadians' access to information requests.”
Earlier this month, when Rempel demanded an explanation for Health Canada's bewildering, maddening aversion to rapid COVID-19 testing, Hajdu first accused the Tory critic of “present(ing) false information to the House of Commons.”
“In fact, we do have rapid tests in Canada,” said Hajdu.
When Rempel protested that they aren't available where they could do the most good, or in sufficient quantity, Hajdu directly impugned her answer of 40 seconds earlier. “Rapid tests … can actually make situations even more precarious for communities,” she said. “Many jurisdictions that have used rapid tests in that way have seen a worsening of their outbreaks.”
That was a large bunch of bananas. It was a whole plantation. But Hajdu does it over and over again. “Canadians think that we can stop this at the border,” she said one Friday in March, “but what we see is a global pandemic meaning that border measures are actually highly ineffective and in some cases can create harm.”
The border closed the following Monday morning.
It hardly even seems worth mentioning Hajdu's eye- watering defences of China's handling of the pandemic in the early days. That's not the sort of thing that gets you in trouble in Liberal-land. But it's still bizarre. “If China wasn't honest, then they need to be held to account,” she told CTV's Evan Solomon on Sunday.
There is no “if” about that, and there hasn't been for many, many months.
This minister is an incandescent liability, a fearsomely efficient one-woman government-discrediting operation. It doesn't really matter what went on with her mask at Pearson on Sunday, but it matters that she was still in a position to create the controversy.
This would make for a pretty silly firing offence, but there's no bad time to sack Patty Hajdu.