Can we clarify something, because the public has a distorted idea of politicians during an emergency.

So we are giving WAY too much credit and validation to people who are VERY bad leaders.

I learned this from the horse's mouth: public health officials themselves.

Ready?

Myth:

[POLITICIAN A] works so hard. He must be really tired.

Reality:
Politicians like ministers and premiers have no requirements day to day.

They can show up for briefings or not show up for briefings.

On a whim. It's their choice.

They come and go.

Public Health officials, ministry officials, and health workers, HAVE NO SUCH LIBERTIES.

They don't have flexy schedules they can change any way they want depending on how they feel.

NO ONE IS TAKING THEIR ATTENDANCE unlike health officials.

Do NOT assume the minister and the premier and their staff spend all day working on the crisis.

Why would they? No one will know any different.

Because they don't make their schedules public.

With every govt no matter the party (but esp Conservatives) situation briefings are set and happen every day.

AND the minister or premier can decide 5 minutes before "nah don't feel like going".

Who is going to force their participation?

Hmm?

They don't have a boss.

During SARS, the news media embraced major exagerations spun by his office that Tony Clement was somehow a vital force steering the crisis.

Romanticized news stories about Clement listening to rock music as he toiled away on the crisis in his office at the Ministry.

I worked in the Minister's Office at Finance across the street from Clement.

I bought it. The public bought it.

For years I assumed the stories of this hyper vital hero Health Minister published at that time were true.

No one questioned it.

And just like today, as has happened NUMEROUS times during pandemic.

Excessively deferential reporters and columnists swallowed a narrative spun by political spinners, whole.

Without confirming it with credible off the record witnesses: public health leaders and officials.

A decade later, I had a chance to do the background checking reporters & columnists failed to do.

Suddenly I found myself face to face with key members of the public health SARS team when I was hired at public health.

I was excited: I was going to serve them every day.

In casual spaces of time I had with them, in the car heading to an interview, or between meetings, I could ask them anything I wanted.

So I asked about SARS and Clement.

"You must have appreciated having a sharp minister who worked so hard...."

Response: [LAUGHING]

I wasn't looking for or expecting them to refute the media narrative that Clement's office spun.

So, I was stunned.

Remember, these are direct witnesses - senior public health officials - who were in the room and coordinating the crisis.

Clement struggled absorbing concepts. Didn't listen well. They were frustrated.

So the less he was present the more he was absent the better.

When he was in his office listening to music that's bc he wasn't useful doing much else.

He looked busy.

But he was just killing time

That wasn't even so much a personal knock against Clement.

They confirmed a reality: ministers are not experts or proficient in epidemics and emergency management.

The problems happen when they start thinking they are.

Especially ministers with a particular focus on future ambitions like the party leadership.

Premiers as a rule must pick health ministers who are their most competent MPP but who are also not blinded into bad decisions by political plans and hubris.

A special unique MPP indeed:

So, it's not that all politicians are bad, lazy, and deceptive.

Some are.

From a grossly inflated sense of their significance with minds poisoned by the trappings of office, sycophantic political staff, and columnists and everyday citizens all too eager for a hero narrative.

I asked "Clement at least wasn't a neg for the effort, right?"

This health leader smiled, eyebrows raised "he was at times".

I was surprised. Like most, for ten years I had the hero SARS minister narrative in my head.

The media swallowed a false spin and reported it as true.

By all appearances, we were led to believe and *wanted to believe* a falsehood.

Health officials will rarely proactively correct false spin from political leaders during a crisis.

Just bc they don't, no one should assume *any* spin or claim from the political realm is accurate.

The problem is, during an emergency, the press is reporting on something they and we the public don't understand yet.

And politicians briefing us from a government podium has the trappings of an official authority with expert knowledge we don't have.

They exploit it to the max.

That's why Doug Ford relishes in dropping hints about reports and projections before they are publicly announced.

"Folks it's really bad..."

Usually framed with "I was working until midnight last night reading the report..."

It plants an assumption in our heads that the premier is an expert authority because he knows things we don't.

That's how the premier and ministers assume public health authority in our minds, and why we don't even think to probe for verification from health officials.

Working long hours reading reports we can't see yet, they drape themselves in the image of health officials and health leaders.

Ford co-opts their authority because he becomes them in the relentless, daily message of an image.

So that we won't question his decisions.

It wasn't until Dr. Shelley Deeks blew the whistle did media begin to grasp each time the premier said he was acting on advice, or health officials approved, it might not be true.

That the government was winging it.

Because the press didn't do their most basic duty: VERIFY.

I was aware the press was making this horrendous oversight breaching the most fundamental law of journalism, the whole time.

**Because the CMOH does not speak for Public Health Ontario.**

No one does except employees of Public Health Ontario.

(I am PHO's fmr media liason)

I tried to tell them.

To this day, I don't know why media didn't verify.

Except that they didn't take the time to understand how Ontario's public health system is structured and functions. They had no situational awareness.

It will go down as a historic journalism error.

An error that would not have happened, had Public Health Ontario been allowed to maintain our building media presence as part of an aggressive strategy they tasked me with in 2014-2015.

I was preparing our experts for pandemic by pursuing as many media opportunities as possible.

The strategy was working: news media were finally conscious we existed.

We were front and center as public health experts in major news stories. Even the New York Times and The UK Guardian started calling on us.

Newsrooms and journalists had us on their radar.

Then the strategy was inexplicably dumped.

The new Minister, Eric Hoskins, had leadership ambitions and wanted the stage for himself. And keeping us quiet meant he had total control.

The lights went out.

Media practically forgot we existed by the time pandemic rolled around.

The shutdown of PHO's media function, the lack of any sense PHO existed, meant when Doug Ford took over and started cutting PHO, no one noticed.

No one asked about PHO when Ford initiated a war on Medical Officers and Public Health Units after announcing his plan to gut them.

When municipalities launched a campaign to save Public Health in the spring of 2019, no one asked if Ford was also touching Public Health Ontario.

He was.

We would only find out later during pandemic when exiled PHO leaders and laid off staff spoke out. https://www.google.com/amp/s/nationalpost.com/news/canada/covid-19-public-health-ontario-budget-cuts/wcm/a6d117f5-a68f-427a-903c-4f10045b2bc8/amp/

All this together, means Ford assumes public health authority from the podium, or photo-ops in his boardroom.

With no one second guessing his claims of expert support, bc PHO didn't exist as an authority in the minds of the media and the public. Media didn't know to ask them.

It didn't matter how many times I yelled it.

When Doug Ford claimed expert advice, because of CMOH backing, media didn't check to verify with Ontario's agency of EXPERTS, PHO.

It didn't even register when I pulled the alarm using direct language.

I went as far as I could.

I stuck my neck out as a former official, and said:

"The Premier is lying".

That was risky language but I knew it was true.

I'll post the article again.

It's clear we need reminding.

In November Dr. Deeks confirmed the premier was rejecting advice and muzzling PHO.

So please. Stop giving the premier and politicians credit for working hard.

And stop placing confidence in them they don't deserve.

Finally, the premier does not have access to information we don't.

We see what he sees.

The data is out there including projections that independent experts provide to us publicly themselves.

The premier does not know best bc of some special wisdom from power.

In fact, Public Health Ontario's ousted experts speak freely from UofT Dalla Lana.

That's how you know the premier is rejecting advice: they consistently oppose his reopening schemes as reckless and dangerous.

As the public you have access to them. They're a click away.

Despite it all, I'm optimistic.

I think you will elect a good government at Queen's Park when the time comes.

And they'll start rebuilding our province, rebuilding and empowering PHO, lighting a healthier, safer future.

Until then, keep safe, and keep resisting.
(Fin)
#onpoli

(Darcy Fever in Hamilton. You can watch her shows every Friday on Facebook.)