Categories for Feature

[Written twenty years ago this week.]

On a beautiful Sunday afternoon just over a week ago, when the rural Ontario sky was clear and cloudless and seemed to go on forever, my wife and I pulled our 20-month-old son from the water of Stony Lake.

Sam was not breathing, and his little face was blue. His arms and legs lay on the dock of our friends cottage, as still and white as tiny pieces of china. Somewhere, I could hear my wife screaming Sam’s name and mine. I cannot remember very much, but I know that I picked him up and cleared his mouth, and tried to push the water out.

A friend, who is a doctor in Ottawa and who had invited us to the cottage, arrived to perform CPR. After a half-minute or so – 30 seconds in which the world was utterly quiet – Sam started to cough, then cry, and then come back to the world of the living.

We still do not know how long he was in the water, or how the cottage’s side door became unlatched. Following two days at the hospital, it became apparent that Sam – somehow, inexplicably – was just fine. His parents, suffused with guilt and fear and a feeling of powerlessness, weren’t. In the journalistic shorthand favoured by some, it was a near-tragedy. To us, it felt like one. It still does.

Notwithstanding that, I decided it was time to return to work. Numbed by what had happened not 48 hours before, I slipped into my office in a downtown Toronto office tower on an unforgettable Tuesday morning. Within minutes, I learned another office tower in New York City – one containing people I and my colleagues do business with all the time – was facing a tragedy of an entirely different sort.

There has been an avalanche of words in the days since September 11, when unspeakable crimes were committed against you, the people of the United States. Out of all of the images, and out of all of the words, it must be difficult to know very much that is certain. So let me offer one modest certainty, from a neighbour who came close to the edge of an abyss last week, too.

We, your friends and allies in the country to the North, have been outraged, and shocked, by what took place on that Tuesday in New York City and Washington – and greatly moved by the heroism that has taken place since. We have cried at the images flickering on our television screens – and, in our schools and workplaces, we have talked of nothing else. Canadians are, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, profoundly affected by the attacks on the United States of America in a way that is as enduring as your great Republic.

We know, in our deferential Canadian sort of way, that you do not think about us very much, most of the time. (Given our relative population, and the relative degree of influence we wield internationally, that shouldn’t surprise anyone.) But in the days that have gone by since that Tuesday, I can testify to the fact that we have certainly thought a lot about you.

There were many Canadians working in the World Trade Centre on that horrible day, which is one of the reasons we have shared your rage and sadness and dread. But for Canadians, it is not enough to simply state that these outrages could have targeted us. From our perspective, they did target us. Our shared way of life, our systems of democracy, our methods of commerce. If terrorism is a method of creating fear by striking at symbols, we in Canada are no bystanders to all of this. Because many of our symbols are yours, too.

Our relationship with the United States is a complicated one, most days. We watch your television shows, but we sometimes feel our own slender culture is being overwhelmed by the giant to the South. We live more securely under the U.S. defence umbrella, but we sometimes feel we need to be more independent of you, in places like Cuba, or on issues like landmines. We marry each other, and heal each other, and teach other. But we are Canadians, we proclaim to the world, stitching maple leaf flags onto our backpacks, cheering what remains of our hockey teams. We are not Americans, we declare.

Well, in that terrible week – and this week, and I suspect in many weeks to follow – we became Americans, in a way. The attack on you was an attack on us. As our Prime Minister, Jean Chretien, said at a ceremony in Ottawa marking a national day of mourning – a ceremony attended by more than 100,000 people on Parliament Hill, the Mounties estimated – we are with you in this one, and right to the very end.

Our friendship has no limit, Mr. Chretien said in his speech, while addressing the U.S. ambassador to Canada, Paul Celucci. “Generation after generation, we have travelled many difficult miles together. Side by side, we have lived through many dark times. Always firm in our shared resolve to vanquish any threat to freedom and justice. And together, with our allies, we will defy and defeat the threat that terrorism poses to all civilized nations, Mr. Ambassador, we will be with the United States every step of the way. As friends. As neighbours. As family.”

I can report to you that our 20-month-old, Sam, is fine. He speeds around our home, chasing his older brother and sister, seemingly oblivious to what could have happened – what did happen. He survived his brush with finality and, eventually, so will his parents.

You will emerge from all of this, too – stronger, and more united, and filled with moral purpose. And if it matters at all, you should know that we Canadians will be there with you.

Always have been, always will be.

Comments (0)

The English-language leaders’ debate is hours away. So think about this: A light switch.

That’s what Justin Trudeau kind of was, a Conservative pollster has said. A light switch.

“Other politicians are like dimmer switches: They lose popularity gradually,” the pollster said. “Our polling showed Justin Trudeau is like a light switch. People like him until they suddenly don’t. It’s on or off. A light switch.”

All of us having had our fill of sports metaphors to explain political phenomena — and the crucial English debate about to happen — the light switch explanation is compelling. It might be wildly wrong, but it was at least novel.

Because, tonight, it’s make it or break it time for Justin Trudeau. He needs to bring his best game.

Just a few short weeks ago, it was all going to be so simple, wasn’t it? Trudeau and his Liberals were way ahead of the alternatives in the polls. The alternatives were unknown, or making lots of mistakes, or both. The Liberal universe had unfolded as it should.

The pollsters, the politicos, the punditocracy all agreed: The Boy Wonder would be rewarded with a majority. Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy. He’s good-looking. The Conservatives are cross-burners. Justin had kept most of us alive during the pandemic, or something like that. Vote Liberal.

And then: Click.

Kabul falling on the first day of the campaign didn’t help, to be sure. Wildfires raging in three provinces, ditto. Early election call: Really, really dumb. And the fourth wave, of course, which the experts all said was heading our way, and about which Trudeau gave a Trudeauesque shrug.

It was all that, yes. But mainly it’s him. Him, him, him: Justin Trudeau.

Click.

If you now say you saw it coming, you’re fibbing. I didn’t see it coming, and neither did just about anyone else. Apart from a gaggle of true-blue, true-believer Tories who worked in the office of Erin O’Toole, all of us are slack-jawed, a bit, about what has taken place.

The polls reflect what is now going on, but they sure as hell didn’t foresee it. More revealing is the anecdotal stuff. Because — per my Daisy Group’s political catechism — facts tell, but stories sell.

Stories from a pollster pal that his call centre workers are getting angry earfuls about Trudeau: It’s deep and it’s undeniable. They loathe the Liberal leader.

So, too, stories from Liberal candidates and MPs and senators who still dare to speak with Yours Truly (anonymity guaranteed, natch). Some are chiselling Trudeau’s name off their literature and signs.

One told me about his kids. “My kids hate Trudeau,” this Grit Parliamentarian said. “They hate him for lying to Indigenous people. They hate him.”

“Desperation,” said one longtime Liberal and senator. “It’s desperation when Trudeau is now calling it ‘the Trudeau team’ because his popularity has turned negative. What team is he talking about? He made them all into water carriers.”

The signs of decay and defeat are everywhere. Trudeau campaigning in previously safe Liberal seats. Liberal cabinet ministers — the aforementioned water-carriers — being nudged into the media glare. The flinging of every possible smear at O’Toole — no matter how false, no matter how absurd — in the hope that something will stick.

As in life, in politics: The causes of defeat and victory are multiple and myriad. It’s never just one thing that sinks you.

But mostly, it’s him — Justin Trudeau. A country that once loved him now loathes him. So he needs to win tonight’s debate. Or he’s done.

Click.

— Warren Kinsella was chairman of the federal Liberal war rooms in 1993 and 2000

Comments (48)

It was Feb. 15, 1996: National Flag Day.

Jean Chretien tells the tale: “There was a bunch of young kids in front of me. I was signing autographs. The kids were there with Canadian flags, and they asked me to autograph their flags. So that’s why the (RCMP) bodyguards were behind me at that particular moment, to permit me to have access to the kids.”

He pauses.

“(After the speeches and autographs,) I was going back to my car, and these two guys rush towards me, shouting. One had a steel bullhorn. He was screaming things, it was not highly complimentary. So when the first one arrived, I grabbed him by the neck and flipped him over. But the press didn’t ever report that, with the other guy — the one with the steel bullhorn. I pushed down the bullhorn, too, right after I flipped the first guy over. Then an RCMP guy flipped the (bullhorn-waving protester) over.”

He pauses, and shrugs. “I had to grab the guy by the neck and flip him. So I did.”

And so, the Shawinigan Handshake was born.

Chretien went home, wondering if his wife would be mad at him (she was). An aide called. The aide said a Toronto radio station had conducted a quick survey about the Flag Day fracas. Fearing the worst, Chretien preferred to put it off: “I said to him, ‘Don’t tell me give me the results until I’m back at work on Monday.’”

The aide replied: “Mr. Prime Minister, we won’t tell you on Monday, in any event.”

“Why?” Chretien asked, genuinely puzzled.

“If we tell you,” answered the press secretary, “we’re afraid you will go out and grab another protester by the neck. It’s gotten an 85% approval rating!”

Not every prime minister — as we all know, too well — is like Jean Chretien. Not every prime minister will grab a protester with his bare hands and flip him out of the way. And not every confrontation with protesters ends with something as memorable as the Shawinigan Handshake.

Monday in London, Ont., for example. Another prime minister, Justin Trudeau, was leaving a Liberal campaign event at a brewery. A mob of angry protesters — many clutching home-made signs, but many more clutching People’s Party of Canada signs — surrounded Trudeau’s bus.

As Trudeau stepped onto the bus, a phalanx of nervous-looking RCMP officers surrounding him, a shower of rocks and gravel rained down — on media, on police, on protesters. It’s unknown if Trudeau himself was hit (asked later by a reporter, Trudeau wouldn’t say).

A video posted to Twitter showed a single protester by the bus — one alleged to be a People’s Party organizer and white supremacist by the Canadian Anti-Hate Network — leaning down to scoop up rocks. And then rocks rained down near Trudeau and others.

Whether Trudeau was hit or not, whether another political party was involved or not, the event was serious. Someone could have been hurt, perhaps badly. And many questions remained unanswered, among them:

• Why has the Trudeau Liberal campaign repeatedly held events in places, and in circumstances, where crazed protesters have gotten too close?
• Why hasn’t the Trudeau campaign moved to a more controlled — and pandemic-safe — approach to events, as Erin O’Toole’s has done?
• Why has the RCMP not exercised its authority, and stopped the Liberals from holding events like the one in London?

Many questions, too few answers.

One thing is for certain: If Jean Chretien was still running things, the rock-throwing protester could count on one thing.

He wouldn’t ever get a chance to do the same thing twice.

— Warren Kinsella was Jean Chretien’s Special Assistant

Comments (37)

Comments (6)

Bang bang.

Let’s get this out of the way because it’s apparently necessary.

I’m a gun owner.  I own guns.

Took the course, passed, got a gun.  Now own guns, plural.  I know how to use them. Trigger locks, gun safes, secure and separate storage: know all that, too.

But if I were still running the war room of the federal Liberal Party — and I was, in the ones where we won big majorities in 1993 and 2000 — this gun owner would be sitting in front of computer screen in downtown Ottawa this morning, typing up a script.

We’d be using the script to produce an ad that would run in every urban centre in Canada, over and over, until people could recite it by heart.  It would show footage — some old, some not so old — of bodies being carried away.  Canadian bodies.

Then the narrator’s voice — a woman’s voice — would be heard.  Here’s what she would say, over top of the images of murder victims in Quebec and Nova Scotia.

“This is the Ruger Mini assault rifle.

It was used to murder 14 women in Montréal.

It was used to murder 22 people in Nova Scotia. 36 Canadians.

Justin Trudeau wants to ban it.

Erin O’Toole wants to keep it around.

On Sept. 20, remember those 36 Canadians.  Be their voice.

On Sept. 20, vote Liberal.”

That’s the ad, more or less.  I’m confident something very much like it is about to show up on every TV screen, and every computer screen, many times between now and voting day.  That’s a fact.

And here’s another fact: I had written a not-bad column for this newspaper saying that I thought Justin Trudeau was done like dinner.  That — over everyone’s expectations, mine included — it looked like Erin O’Toole was going to eke out a win.

And then — boom! — the gun issue came back.

Incredibly, improbably, the Conservative campaign had again decided to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  I asked my editors to hold the column because I no longer thought it was true.

Here’s the problem, O’Toole folks: you can’t wiggle your way out of this one, as your leader tried to do at the end of the French debate.  You can’t say you misspoke, or say you were misquoted.  You can’t spin it.

Here’s why.

It’s right in your damn platform, boys and girls.  It’s right there, in black and white:

“We will start by repealing C-71 and the May 2020 Order in Council.” The “May 2020 Order in Council” statement sounds innocuous enough — but that’s the cabinet decision that was passed to ban the Ruger Mini that was used in the mass murders in Montreal in 1989 and Nova Scotia in 2020.

How do you walk that back, when it’s right in your party platform?  Take it from a guy who still hears about the “replace the GST” promise in the 1993 Liberal Red Book: big political graves are dug with little shovels.  That’s the political reality.

This, too, is political reality: politics is all about symbols.  Not words, not policies: symbols.  And the Ruger Mini is a symbol — to most Canadians (because only about 5,000 Canadians actually own one), the Ruger Mini is not even a gun anymore.  It’s part of our history.  It’s a serpent, spitting death.

Another reality: the gun nuts will tweet their usual ungrammatical, misspelled crap about gangs and farmers and freedom and whatnot.  But the gun nuts don’t win national political campaigns, do they? They lose them.  They’re really, really good at it.

I’m a gun owner.  I’m a gun owner who believes, deeply, that Justin Trudeau is the worst Prime Minister we’ve had in generations.  I believe he must, must be defeated.

But thanks to a few short words in the Conservative platform, I’m no longer sure he will be.

Bang bang.

— Kinsella was former prime minister Jean Chretien’s special assistant

Comments (12)

Erin O’Toole won by not losing.

Justin Trudeau won by sounding authentic, for once.

Yves-Francois Blanchet won by being himself.

Jagmeet Singh lost — by looking lost.

That’s this writer’s assessment of the first federal leaders debate, held Thursday night in Montreal. It was entirely in French, and fast-paced. But it made for compelling viewing.

The debate was organized by Quebec’s TVA network, and the moderation — by veteran broadcaster Pierre Bruneau — was simply excellent. Unlike what we are all likely to see in the English-language debate, the TVA show was well-done: Lots of important subjects covered, and very little over-talk.

The leaders, meanwhile, mostly performed well. When he speaks in English, Liberal Leader Trudeau is too often affected and phony. But in the French debate, Trudeau didn’t look or sound like he was acting. On subjects like vaccines and guns, he was passionate.

The Bloc’s Blanchet is an award-winning figure in Quebec’s entertainment and communications industry, and it showed. He has a broadcaster’s voice, and a performer’s style, and he clearly knows how to use the camera to his advantage.

The New Democrats’ Singh desperately needs Quebec voters to embrace the NDP, as they did overwhelmingly a decade ago under Jack Layton. But, based on Singh’s first 2021 debate performance, that’s unlikely to happen. The Dipper boss was low-energy for much of the debate, and really didn’t ever score any points.

O’Toole, however, did — and not just by showing up. The Tory leader’s French was much better than many Quebec commentators expected. And he clearly surprised the other political leaders, too.

The expectations for O’Toole were as low as they can get — just as they were before this unnecessary, unwanted election kicked off. But he didn’t merely play defence in the debate. O’Toole was aggressive, at times, going after Trudeau on the appalling Liberal record on sexual harassment and treatment of women.

Trudeau was left blinking and sputtering throughout much of what the moderator Bruneau noted was the “MeToo” segment of the debate — because O’Toole put Trudeau on the ropes, and kept him there.

All of the opposition leaders hammered Trudeau on the election call itself, too. As in the rest of Canada, Quebec voters are mystified — and angry — that Trudeau called an election during a fourth wave in the deadly COVID-19 pandemic.

As has been the case so far in the 36-day election, Trudeau was simply unable to come up with a compelling narrative for triggering an election two years earlier than he needed to.

But the debate wasn’t all bad for the Liberal leader. Watching him, no one should be surprised to see Trudeau continuing to hammer away at the vaccination issue in the remainder of the campaign: On Thursday night, he was effective on it.

Trudeau clearly feels O’Toole — who has an undisclosed number of unvaccinated Tory candidates, and has been blasé about it — is vulnerable on vaccines. If Trudeau goes neg in the remaining days, it’ll likely be on the hot topic that is vaccines.

For those who are dismissive about the French-language debates, keep this in mind: In 2019, Blanchet became far more popular after turning in strong French-language performances. And the resulting Bloc surge helped to rob Trudeau of his majority government.

Remember this, too: O’Toole needed to show that he could be prime minister for all of Canada, not just Western Canada.

Based on his first debate performance as Conservative leader, he did that and then some.

And that’s why he, more than Messrs. Trudeau or Singh, was the winner.

— Warren Kinsella has provided TV debate coaching to Canadian political party leaders since 1989

Comments (22)

Sexual assault.

Because that’s what we’re talking about, isn’t it? Whether the Prime Minister of Canada — and several members of his party — sexually assaulted women.

It’s an important question, and not just because there’s an election going on. It’s important all the time, because it happens all the time, at every level of society. Sexual harassment and sexual misconduct, too.

The Criminal Code of Canada says “sexual assault” happens if a person is touched in any way that interferes with their sexual integrity. It includes kissing, touching, intercourse and any other sexual activity without his or her consent. It’s a crime to do those things.

The definition of sexual assault was on my mind the evening of June 6, 2018. Someone — a female Member of Parliament — had sent me a message.

“Hi Warren,” it read. “Do you know about this B.C. community paper editorial about Trudeau being handsy with a reporter before he was in politics?”

I said I didn’t.

The anonymous correspondent sent me the August 2000 editorial from the Creston Valley Advance. It described an encounter between the author of the editorial — who I have never named, and I never will — and Justin Trudeau at a beer festival.

The paper stated, as fact, that Trudeau had groped the female reporter. And then how, after learning that she also wrote for a newspaper in the Postmedia chain, apologized for touching her.

“I’m sorry,” the newspaper quoted Trudeau as saying, after the incident. “If I had known you were reporting for a national paper, I never would have been so forward.”

The editorial went on from there, criticizing the future prime minister for “groping a young woman” he didn’t know.

I checked the British Columbia archives. The editorial wasn’t fake news. It was real. I checked up on the reporter: She had indeed worked at the Creston Valley Advance.

What the editorial described, on the face of it, was sexual assault. Groping someone without their consent is sexual assault, full stop.

I decided the best thing to do was to place the editorial on my website, with no commentary, and no identification of the victim. Within hours, the story ricocheted around the world, covered by everyone from CNN to the New York Times.

What was Justin Trudeau’s response to the story? Well, he blamed the victim, basically. Said he didn’t know what she was thinking.

And then he went jogging. Shirtless.

That, to me, was so lacking in self-awareness — so lacking in respect for what that woman had experienced, frankly — it made me want to throw up.

Because, you know, zero tolerance.

That’s what Trudeau has said, many times. That he and his party have “zero tolerance” for sexual harassment and sexual misconduct.

In 2018, he gave interviews to Canadian Press and CBC about the subject. Here’s what he said.

“We have no tolerance for this — we will not brush things under the rug, but we will take action on it immediately,” he declared.

He said the same sort of thing to CBC Radio. There, the self-proclaimed Feminist Prime Minister proclaimed: “I’ve been very, very careful all my life to be thoughtful, to be respectful of people’s space and people’s headspace as well.”

No, he hasn’t. No, he isn’t.

And we have been provided with yet another goddamned example of that, just this week, mid-election. When we learned that a member of his Liberal caucus has been the subject of multiple complaints of sexual misconduct and worse. One of the complainants actually attempted suicide.

Trudeau’s response? He says he believes the MP. And we simply don’t know if he or his PMO consulted with the RCMP. We need to know that. We deserve to know that.

So, it’s relevant that, early Wednesday, Trudeau’s former attorney general — Canada’s lawyer, in effect — wrote this online about the latest allegations: “Anyone who has a responsibility to address (the Liberal sexual misconduct allegations) and does not is not fit to lead. Anyone who stands by and does nothing is complicit. Anyone who is surprised has not been paying attention.”

Well said, Jody Wilson-Raybould.

Is it sexual assault? Is it sexual harassment? Those are, and will remain, important questions.

But here’s another one: After all that we now know, why the hell would anyone vote for this creep?

— Warren Kinsella is the founder of the Daisy Group, a firm that has worked with multiple women who have experienced sexual harassment in Trudeau’s Liberal Party

Comments (28)

For Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, week one of the campaign went really, really badly.

Week two, therefore, needed to go better.

It didn’t.

Here’s a roundup of the past week and a bit. When you eyeball it, you’ll understand why every published poll shows the Conservatives edging ahead.

— Aug. 25: The Liberal Party spent more than all other parties combined on Facebook ads in the first week of the campaign — but you wouldn’t be able to tell from the polling. Because the polling ain’t good. They’re losing.

— Aug. 26: Trudeau’s candidate for Trois-Rivieres wrote a column in July 2020 which criticized Trudeau’s “elastic ethics” in the wake of the WE Charity scandal. In other news, Grit candidate vetting is going swimmingly.

— Aug. 26: Our acting Chief of the Defence Staff says that Canada’s mission in Afghanistan has come to an end — even though Trudeau had said our Armed Forces would remain there until Aug. 31. Shame.

— Aug. 27: After outcry — and after a column by yours truly! — the Public Health Agency of Canada reversed its plans to postpone briefings on the fourth wave during the election campaign. The Sun gets results!

— Aug. 27: The Liberal Party’s candidate for Kildonan-St. Paul previously worked at a think tank which dismissed the stories of residential school survivors as a “myth.” Why is that person still a candidate?

— Aug. 27: Trudeau hosts a rally in Mississauga — which has media and Liberals packed in like cordwood. The attendance is well beyond Ontario’s limits on public gatherings. Trudeau shrugs when asked about it.

— Aug. 27, at the same rally in Mississauga: After attacking the Tories repeatedly for having unvaccinated candidates, Trudeau admits that not all Liberal campaigning candidates are vaccinated, either. Do as I say, not as I do, etc.

— Aug. 28: The Liberal Party’s Marco Mendicino — who should know better — declines to answer questions about visa regulations for Afghans seeking a way out of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.

— Aug. 29: After six years in power, Justin Trudeau blames Stephen Harper for Canada’s increasing carbon emissions. In other news, Trudeau also blames Harper for long lineups and Canadian commercials during the Super Bowl.

— Aug. 30: The Conservatives point out that the Trudeau Liberals voted against a bill to ban foreign purchases of homes. Which the Grits now favour.

— Aug.  30: According to polling from Angus Reid, the number of Canadians who view Canada’s efforts to rescue Afghan nationals as a success “hovers near zero.” It could actually be less than zero.

— Aug. 30: Asked about his party’s process for handling sexual misconduct allegations, Trudeau reminds reporters that “every situation is different.” Which is basically what he also said when a reporter claimed Trudeau had groped her.

— Aug. 30: Trudeau called the election pivotal. But not so pivotal that he has a platform to show Canadians.

— Aug. 30: According to BNN Bloomberg, Canadians reported the sharpest decline in confidence since the middle of the pandemic last year. Rising inflation, the crisis in Afghanistan, and increasing COVID-19 cases are among the factors.

— Aug. 30: Real estate industry associations bash the Liberal housing platform amidst fears that it could “criminalize the way Canadians sell their homes.” Ouch!

And that’s how week two went, folks.

Will week three be any better?

Don’t hold your breath.

Comments (21)

Comments (22)

Where’s Theresa Tam?

It’s kind of like that popular Where’s Waldo book series, isn’t it? Someone is supposed to be somewhere, except you can’t find them. They’re hiding.

Theresa Tam, as is very well known, is the Chief Public Health Officer of Canada. But where she has gone? That’s not so well known.

Because Tam has been ubiquitous throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, hasn’t she? Every single day, just about, she has appeared in the media, providing information.

Often, the information has been dramatically, wildly wrong. A sampling:

• At the start of the COVID-19 crisis, Tam said, “There has been no evidence to date that this illness, whatever it’s caused by, is spread easily from person to person.”
• Shortly thereafter, Tam said there existed “no reason to be overly concerned” about the spreading virus.
• In the week Canadians started to get infected, Tam said: “There is no clear evidence that this virus is spread easily from person to person. The risk to Canadians remains low.”
• Even as the virus was killing Canadians, Tam said masks had “potential negative aspects” and added that “it can sometimes make it worse.”
• Much later, Tam said that people should wear the aforementioned masks when having sex, and avoid kissing.

Seriously, she said all those things. And, yes, she’s a doctor and all that.

Now, you might wondering — and no one would blame you for doing so — if it’s possibly a good thing that Dr. Theresa Tam has gone Bermuda Triangle on us.

I mean, with the stuff she’s said, it’s probably better to get medical advice from one of the many epidemiological Nobel laureates found on Twitter, all of whom have pictures of kittens instead of their faces.

But, no. Tam has a job to do. It’s even in legislation. And, you know, the pandemic. It’s still going on. (It’s getting worse again, in fact.)

The statute that governs Tam’s shop is unimaginatively called the Public Health Agency of Canada Act. It has a couple interesting parts to it.

Here’s one, from the preamble: “The Government of Canada considers that the creation of a public health agency for Canada and the appointment of a Chief Public Health Officer will contribute to federal efforts to identify and reduce public health risk factors and to support national readiness for public health threats.”

See that? No less than the government itself says that Tam’s job is to “identify and reduce public health risk factors” and ensure there is “national readiness” for things like COVID-19.

There’s more. Section 7 of the Act says Tam is expected to “communicate with the public … for the purpose of providing information about public health issues.”

That’s Tam’s job. That’s what she was hired to do. But since the election began, Dr. Theresa Tam hasn’t really been doing her job, has she?

Oh, sure, she has a Twitter account, almost certainly maintained by a minion, in both official languages. But during the election? Press conference? Answering questions about the surge in infections?

Poof. She’s gone. Vanished.

People have noticed. The Conservative Party has written to the head of Canada’s public service, demanding an investigation — a search party, sort of — into Tam’s whereabouts.

And Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole — who now has a better shot at becoming Tam’s boss than any of us expected — says this: “Has (Justin Trudeau) silenced the public health authority from giving public updates? That’s a question for Mr. Trudeau.”

It sure is. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh was much more direct, and said this to another newspaper: “I mean, if we needed another reminder why this was a bad decision of Justin Trudeau to call the election, there’s another example. We’re still dealing with this pandemic, still dealing with a crisis. And we’re not able to get briefings of that nature because we’re in a caretaker mode.”

Actually, we’re in Where’s Waldo mode. So what does Trudeau say?

Typically, nothing. Bureaucrats like Tam, Trudeau insists, “work every single day,” election or no election, blah blah blah.

If all of this reminds you of what Donald Trump did to Dr. Anthony Fauci, silencing America’s Chief Medical Advisor during the early days of the pandemic, you’re not alone. Lots of us have thought the same thing.

Like Trump, Trudeau doesn’t want his sunny days clouded with unhelpful talk about the rampaging Delta variant or Canadians gasping for air in ICUs. So, Tam — like Fauci — disappears. Poof.

With one critical difference. Fauci didn’t want to be silenced. Tam? We’re not so sure.

Here’s the thing, Dr. Tam: You were hired to do one job. You’re paid a quarter of a million dollars, annually, to — as the law says — “communicate with the public.” The law doesn’t give you time off for elections.

So, do your job, Dr. Tam, or quit.

You work for us, not the Liberal Party.

— Warren Kinsella was the chief of staff to a federal Liberal Minister of Health

Comments (28)