Back at the beginning of April, Doug Ford made a promise to his province.
Faced with a rapidly expanding COVID-19 outbreak and a populace already chafing under shutdowns and restrictions, the Ontario premier agreed to share the scientific modelling of potential illnesses and deaths with the public. And he pledged full transparency going forward.
“You deserve the same information I have. You deserve to see the same data I see when I’m making decisions,” Ford told the camera during his daily Queen’s Park briefing on April 2.
“You deserve to know what I know when you’re making decisions for yourself, your family and community,”
More than two months later, the novel coronavirus remains a pressing crisis, having sickened almost 31,000 people in the province and caused close to 2,500 deaths.
But while Ford continues to invoke “expert advice” to explain his government’s U-turns on things such as testing protocols and the provincial reopening strategy, there has been little disclosure of who is providing it and just what they are saying.
This situation leaves both medical professionals and laypeople struggling to understand why Ontario is making the choices it’s making and where the science might be leading us, critics say.
“I don’t think [Ford] has an expert on speed dial,” said Colin Furness, an infection control epidemiologist and assistant professor at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information.
“The decision making tells me it is not being driven by expertise.”
Command Table mystery
The premier often says that he is deferring to the advice he is receiving from Dr. David Williams, the province’s chief medical officer, and the COVID-19 Command Table, the government’s top advisory body on the disease, which reports directly to Christine Elliott, the minister of health.
Williams counts a joint masters in epidemiology and community health among his four degrees from the University of Toronto. However, it appears that he might be the only person sitting around the table with a specialized background in infectious diseases and outbreaks.
The co-leaders of the command group, Matt Anderson, president and CEO of Ontario Health, and Helen Angus, the deputy minister of health, both have vast experience in health-care administration but no scientific credentials. Anderson studied English at the University of New Brunswick, went on to obtain a masters in health administration before starting his career in information technology. Angus holds a master of science degree in planning from U of T.
The CBC asked both the Ministry of Health and Elliott’s office for the names of the other Command Table members. They weren’t provided, but the government says that representatives from several “relevant” ministries, such as Long-Term Care, Seniors and Accessibility, and the solicitor general also participate in the discussions.
A flow-chart of Ontario’s COVID-19 response, released in early March, suggests that it’s mostly deputy ministers. If so, the Command Table also counts bureaucrats with backgrounds in history, public relations and a former high-ranking Toronto cop among its members.
A flow chart detailing the Ontario government’s complex and multi-faceted response to the COVID-19 crisis. (Government of Ontario)
A ministry spokesperson told the CBC that the Command Table also draws on “external experts who each serve voluntarily” but declined to identify them.
Apart from some colleagues who participated in the early modelling of the disease, Furness said he doesn’t know anyone who has been asked to advise the government. He finds this situation curious given that so much expertise is concentrated in the hospitals and educational institutions in downtown Toronto, a stone’s throw from Queen’s Park.
“You don’t even need bus fare,” he said.
As the crisis drags on, he says, he has been mystified by the Ontario government’s reluctance to embrace random sentinel testing to try and get ahead of the disease and its failure to collect important sign post data, such as race and income, from those who have already fallen ill.
And he says some aspects of the first phase of reopening — such as allowing household cleaners and staff to return to their jobs — made no sense at all.
“I mean who is sitting around the table saying we’ve got to let butlers get back to work?” Furness said
Curious decisions with little explanation
Dr. Dominik Mertz, an associate professor at McMaster University’s medical school and expert on infection control, says he knows some people who have consulted on COVID at the local level, but he remains in the dark about what is going on provincially.
“I would love to know who’s advising them and what that advice was. And what the underlying assumptions are,” said Mertz. “I feel like sometimes the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.”
He points to choices such as allowing adults to play golf and tennis but keeping playgrounds shut to children. And in particular, he wonders how the government came up with the oft-cited provincial benchmark of fewer than 200 new cases a day for a further loosening of lockdown rules and why this metric suddenly seemed to have been abandoned as Ontario moved toward a regional approach to reopening.
WATCH | Premier Ford announces regional approach to stage two of reopening Ontario:
Twenty-four of Ontario’s 34 public health units will be allowed to move into Phase 2 on Friday. The remaining 10, concentrated primarily in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) and near the U.S.-Canada border, will need to wait until new daily case numbers consistently decrease. 3:17
For weeks now, the Hamilton area has been on a “low burn,” says Mertz, averaging fewer than 10 new cases a day. Yet it is being lumped in with areas such as Toronto and Peel, which have much higher case rates, and denied permission to move to Stage 2 of the province’s reopening plan.
“I don’t know what the rationale is,” said Mertz. “I doubt that things will be any better locally in a few weeks, or months, from now.”
Mertz says a more scientific approach to reopening might look at things such as local health care and ICU capacity or the per capita rates of infection, rather than just the raw case numbers.
The province does employ its own epidemiologists and infectious disease experts, particularly within Public Health Ontario (PHO), which is mandated to provide scientific and technical advice to the entire health sector.
The government’s COVID response flow chart suggests PHO is playing a lead role in crafting strategy on things such as testing, surveillance and care and treatment. But those plans have never been communicated to the public.
Ford says he has a ‘host’ of unnamed doctors
After the publication of this story Tuesday morning, Elliott tweeted out the names of seven doctors who are sitting on her ministry’s public health measures table.
Today, I’d like to offer special thanks to Dr. Williams and our public health measures table: Dr. McKeown, Dr. Mowat, Dr. Feller, Dr. Gardner, Dr. Mackie, Dr. Roumeliotis and Dr. Spruyt. We are grateful for your input and ongoing expert advice on our <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/COVID19?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#COVID19</a> recovery planning.
At his COVID19 update later in the day, Ford took umbrage at what he called an “unfair” and “insulting” story. The premier said that there are a “host” of doctors providing expert advice to the province, but again declined address specifics.
“We’ve brought a number of doctors … a lot of doctors. Personally, they don’t want their names out there,” Ford said.
“To say every single doctor involved, I’d give you a list of over a hundred doctors … they don’t want their names out there.”
However, both the Opposition New Democrats and the Liberals are now demanding that his government reveal where its expert advice is coming from.
“Ontarians deserve to know exactly how Premier Doug Ford is justifying his decisions about Ontario’s response to COVID-19. That includes basic information like who is sitting at the ‘Command Table,'” NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said in a news release.
“Ontarians have worked hard and sacrificed in the battle against COVID-19 – they deserve all the facts.”
That sentiment was echoed by the new Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca.
“Time and time again Doug Ford has insisted he is getting the best help possible from the experts – but who are the experts? Doug Ford won’t say. How is that open and transparent?” Del Duca said. “If Doug Ford won’t reveal the team of experts he relies on – how can we trust his plans to move forward?”
Part of the problem might be the system that has been set up to fight Ontario’s COVID-19 outbreak.
Dr. Andrew Morris, an infectious disease specialist at Toronto’s Sinai Health and University Health Network, said the superstructure that Ontario created to tackle the coronavirus in early March, amid fears of supply shortages and overwhelmed hospitals, no longer seems fit for purpose. It’s far too opaque and bureaucratic, he said, to deal with the stubborn reality of a disease that will only be subdued through exhaustive tracing and testing, and continued social distancing.
“It’s not the right structure because it certainly doesn’t account for the blind spots that we’ve already identified,” said Morris. “We know that there have been challenges around behaviour change and communicating with the public.
“We’re asking a lot of the public. They deserve to have as much access to information as possible.”
Dr. Andrew Morris, an infectious diseases specialist at Toronto’s Sinai Health and University Health Network, says the Ontario government’s COVID-19 response has been far too opaque and bureaucratic. (Turgut Yeter/CBC)
In response to the CBC’s questions about where the premier and the COVID Command Table are getting their expert, technical advice, the Ministry of Health did provide one outside name — Steini Brown, dean of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. He is chairing a pair of scientific tables on modelling and evidence synthesis.
Brown declined a request for an interview but did respond to a series of emailed questions describing his role as largely administrative, clearing obstacles for the unnamed scientists who are doing “the hard work.”
Brown says the round tables he oversees have provided “numerical estimates and evidence syntheses” that have affected Ontario government policy but that they aren’t making specific recommendations. The reopening benchmark of 200 new cases a day, for example, didn’t come from his experts, he says.
Asked how the Ford government might improve its response to the COVID-19 crisis, Brown suggested greater openness.
“There is so much misinformation on COVID-19 that the more transparency we have around scientific advice and progress of the pandemic, the stronger foundation we’ll have for engaging the public in the fight,” he wrote.
FORT ST. JAMES, B.C. – A British Columbia First Nations leader says the province must rethink its approach to the forest industry in light of Canfor Corp.’s decision to shutter two sawmills and leave 500 workers without jobs.
Nak’azdli Whut’en Chief Colleen Erickson says First Nations must play a bigger role in the industry’s future in B.C. because Indigenous entities would not be “sending our profits elsewhere” as corporations not headquartered locally would.
Erickson’s comments Friday come after Canfor announced it will close mills in Vanderhoof, B.C., and Fort St. John, B.C., by the end of the year.
The Vancouver-based company says the challenge of accessing economically viable timber for fibre, ongoing financial losses, weak lumber markets and a big increase last month in U.S. tariffs all played a role in the decision.
But Erickson says most First Nations members in the area weren’t surprised Canfor could not access affordable fibre anymore due to what she calls “unsustainable” harvesting practices.
She also says an industry with heavier First Nations involvement would not shutter mills in B.C. and invest elsewhere because local community members “are not going anywhere.”
“I think most people have come to that (conclusion) because of the fact that they can just close their doors and go elsewhere to log, and everybody’s basically left on their own (here),” Erickson says.
“There’s no remediation on their part. There’s nothing to compel them to use some of the profits to help people diversify into something else. If things were local, then it would be a local discussion.”
The call for more local management of forest assets has been echoed by unions, including the Prince George, B.C., local of United Steelworkers whose members comprise 325 of the 500 positions lost in the closures.
“There needs to be a better effort by government to decide what vision they have for the industry in B.C.,” Scott Lunny, director of the union’s Western Canada district, said in a previous statement.
“If Canfor won’t do it, find a company that will invest in B.C.”
Public and Private Workers of Canada national president Geoff Dawe says while members of his union are not directly impacted, he agrees that companies that are not invested in local communities should lose their forest tenure rights.
“The government needs to step in and say, ‘Look, if you’re not going to use this tenure, then we need to give it to somebody that is,'” Dawe says. “Because we have a community here, and they should be looking after that community’s best interest.”
Provincial industry group BC Council of Forest Industries has said in light of the Canfor closures that advancing new agreements with First Nations is one key priority the province should have in safeguarding the sector’s future.
“New approaches to First Nations stewardship, forest tenure, treaty, and equity and investment will support economic reconciliation and build stronger partnerships with Indigenous communities,” council CEO Linda Coady said in a previous statement.
But the group also says the province also needs to be “providing a reliable supply of fibre to the industry.”
Erickson says that is where the province need to talk to First Nations more because she feels her community is more knowledgeable about sustainable management of forests locally than others from elsewhere.
“It’s very frustrating that we’ve come to this point,” she says. “But for sure we need to look at the remaining resource that we have and see how we can do better.
“We definitely need to do something different.”
— Chuck Chiang in Vancouver
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 6, 2024.
U.S. authorities and the RCMP say a Canadian resident has been arrested in Quebec over an alleged Islamic State terror plot to kill Jewish people in New York around the anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel last year.
The U.S. Department of Justice said Friday that Pakistani national Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, 20, also known as Shahzeb Jadoon, was arrested Wednesday in relation to a planned mass shooting that wasto take place around Oct. 7.
United States Attorney General Merrick Garland said Khan was alleged to have had the goal of “slaughtering, in the name of ISIS, as many Jewish people as possible.”
He said Khan was arrested thanks to “quick action” by Canadian law enforcement.
The department alleged in a news release that Khan intended to use “automatic and semi-automatic weapons” in a shooting at a Jewish centre in Brooklyn.
It said he was arrested in or around Ormstown, Que., on his way to New York.
He was charged with one count of attempting to provide material support and resources to a terrorist organization.
The RCMP said it conducted an investigation into Khan in partnership with the FBI and, “that as his actions escalated, at no point in time was Khan an immediate threat prior to his arrest.”
It said Khan was to appear in the Superior Court of Justice in Montreal on Sept. 13, and that the U.S. would be seeking extradition.
RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme said in a statement that “violent extremism” is on the rise around the world, including Canada.
“This planned antisemitic attack against Jewish people in the U.S. is deplorable and there is no place for such ideological and hate-motivated crime in Canada,” he said.
The U.S. complaint against Khan says that starting around July, he told undercover officers of his intention to to carry out mass shootings at Jewish religious centres in the U.S.
It alleges he told the officers of his desire to create “a real off-line cell” of the Islamic State, directing them to obtain assault rifles and ammunition and “some good hunting [knives] so we can slit their throats.”
Oct. 7 was chosen as the date for the attack because there would likely be protests, the complaint says, while the Oct. 11 Yom Kippur holy day was also considered.
It says undercover officers told Khan last month they had secured weapons and, at 5:40 a.m. on Wednesday, Khan got in a vehicle in Toronto and set off for Napanee, Ont., picking up “additional passengers on the way.”
In Nepanee, they switched to a second car and drove to Montreal, where Khan and an “unidentified female” changed vehicles again, with another person at the wheel, the complaint says.
At 2.54 p.m., about 19 kilometres from the U.S. border, the vehicle was stopped by police and Khan was arrested.
The complaint alleges Khan wrote last week: “If we succeed with our plan, this would be the largest attack on US soil since 9/11.”
“The defendant was allegedly determined to kill Jewish people here in the United States, nearly one year after Hamas’ horrific attack on Israel,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement.
“This investigation was led by the FBI, and I am proud of the terrific work by the FBI team and our partners to disrupt Khan’s plan.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 6, 2024.
PARIS – Canada has surpassed its total medal count and gold medal count from the Tokyo Paralympics with two days remaining in Paris.
Wheelchair racer Cody Fournie earned his second gold of the Games, while discus thrower Jesse Zesseu took silver, both at Stade de France. In the pool, Sebastian Massabie struck gold for Canada’s 11th swimming medal and fourth gold.
Canada is now up to 23 medals and eight golds, having won 21 in total and five golds in Tokyo three years ago.
Fournie won the men’s T51 100-metre final while setting a personal best of 19.63 seconds after triumphing in the 200 on Tuesday. The 35-year-old from Rimbey, Alta., is making his Paralympic debut after years on the Canadian wheelchair rugby program.
“I feel wonderful, it feels great to get two gold medals at the Paralympics. I am going to bring back everything I learned from this event and apply (it) to my training back home in Victoria.”
For Zesseu, a 25-year-old from Toronto, it was redemption from his last performance in Paris a year ago.
He triple faulted in the discus, a moment he says was tough on him.
“I guess it was relief. I was here last year in exactly the same city, Paris, at the Stade Charlety (for the world championships) and I triple faulted. It was the worst moment in my life and I cried,” he said.
“I cried again now in Paris but for a different reason, a good reason.”
Zesseu threw 53.24 metres in the men’s F37 discus throw to place behind Tolibboy Yuldashev from Uzbekistan, whose gold-medal throw travelled a personal-best distance of 57.28 metres.
In the pool, Massabie set a world record in the men’s S4 50-metre freestyle just hours after setting the Paralympic record in the heats.
He set the Games record with 36.95 seconds earlier Friday and proceeded to swim a time of 35.61 seconds in the final to smash the previous world record of 36.25 by Israel’s Ami Omer Dadaon, who earned bronze on Friday, in 2022.
“I feel really, really happy, excited, and proud of myself,” said Massabie, who is one of 10 rookies on the Canadian Paralympic swim squad.
In women’s wheelchair basketball, Canada fell 72-61 to the Netherlands in the semifinals.
Arinn Young paced the Canadians with 29 points, while Kady Dandeneau had another 24.
Canada will next play China in the bronze-medal game on Sunday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 6, 2024.
