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

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