Dr. David Williams, Ontario’s chief medical officer of health, “did not lead Ontario’s response to COVID-19,” says the province’s auditor general. Instead, in a scathing report, Bonnie Lysyk states that politicians, led by Premier Doug Ford, drove the province’s actions. The result, Lysyk writes, were plans and reactions to the crisis that were “slower and more reactive” than other provinces.
The three-volume report has raised concerns—and reinforced some existing ones—about leadership as Canada’s most populous province struggles to contain a second wave of the pandemic. Ontario’s response was shaky and unwieldy from the beginning, it suggests. A Health Command Table, established in late February to give advice to the premier and cabinet, originally had 21 members. Then, as the first wave intensified, more and more tables were created, and the organizational structure of the province’s response to the pandemic “evolved to become cumbersome, with numerous participants at multiple tables and sub-tables,” says the auditor general in her report. By November, that Health Command Table had more than 500 participants.
Though Premier Ford frequently said in public statements that he was deferring to the expertise and advice of Dr. David Williams and other public health experts, the auditor general stresses that Ford and his Progressive Conservative colleagues were actually making the judgment calls. “The ultimate decision-making power for responding to COVID‑19 (such as the approval of new expenditure for specific COVID‑19 initiatives) lay with the premier and the cabinet,” her report says.
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See Also:
(1) Story? What story? Hinshaw shouldn’t have power to shut down province
Jack’s Note: I think it is clear to all by now that Doug Ford is running three bricks short of a load.
