Juno News - Public health officials need to be held accountable too

In this episode, we talk about the need for more challenging questions to be asked of public health officials, and why they are not getting the pushback that they deserve from the opposition parties and the media. We also talk about why this is a problem, and what we can do about it.

00:00:00.000 Do you think that public health officials in Canada federally, provincially,

00:00:09.120 municipally, that they are facing enough tough questions right now that they're

00:00:13.620 getting the appropriate pushback that opposition parties are doing their job

00:00:17.400 opposing? I don't think so at all. And that's a problem given how high the

00:00:23.320 stakes are right now, given how public health officials across Canada have

00:00:28.080 really more power over Canadian lives than any official has ever had in the

00:00:33.080 history of our nation. And not only are the appropriate questions not being asked

00:00:37.920 of them by politicians, media, and the general public, but there's a narrative

00:00:42.400 out there that it is wrong to ask them these questions, that it is wrong to

00:00:47.760 challenge them in any capacity, and one must not do it. Here's the thing though, we

00:00:53.580 routinely ask questions of government officials all across the board. Yes,

00:00:58.560 opposition parties oppose the prime minister, premiers, and so forth, that is

00:01:03.000 their job, but also you will see at committee hearings the heads of the RCMP

00:01:07.320 or provincial police, the heads of crown corporations like energy companies and so

00:01:12.720 forth, the ones that are owned by the government, all these different experts,

00:01:15.900 they routinely come before parliamentarians, before the media, the public at public

00:01:20.640 hearings. And people throw the kitchen sink at them, they ask them questions about

00:01:24.540 this, that, and the other, they share their opinions with them, and that's okay.

00:01:27.720 And I think yes, even though most of us are not energy experts, we're not nuclear

00:01:32.040 engineers, if you would like to go to some public deputation to engage with your

00:01:35.880 local power authority, well you should be empowered to do that, and ask whatever

00:01:39.600 question you want. So why is the attitude not the same right now with public

00:01:44.700 health officials? It's doubly frustrating because we also know that the experts

00:01:49.800 right now are divided. Not every public health official in the world is singing

00:01:54.000 the same tune. They're epidemiologists at universities and private institutes who

00:01:58.080 are, they're all divided amongst each other. They're all saying different things

00:02:00.960 about the pandemic. That is to be expected. There's nothing wrong with that.

00:02:04.500 There's also the idea that because hashtag we're all in this together, that's why

00:02:09.900 you can't say anything critical. But look, the fact that you want to say, I'm not so

00:02:13.800 sure that what Dr. Theresa Tam is doing or saying is the right thing, that that somehow

00:02:17.700 means that you're being disrespectful of her, disrespectful of her expertise and so

00:02:22.140 forth. No, not at all. Because the stakes are so high, everybody should feel

00:02:27.420 empowered to have their say and to ask these questions. And quite frankly, I

00:02:30.780 imagine these officials expect it and they should be used to it. So we need more

00:02:36.240 challenging, more questioning of our public health officials, of all government

00:02:40.940 officials, and don't let anybody ever tell you that that's wrong.

00:02:47.700 As you may as well as Hallo.

Juno News - May 15, 2020

Public health officials need to be held accountable too

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript