Ontario AG slams Dr. Williams’ leadership during COVID-19 pandemic

Ontario’s chief medicalofficer of health and his associates “did not lead” the province’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic in its early days and repeatedly ordered measures only when it was too late, the auditor general wrote in a scathing report.

Bonnie Lysyk said Dr. David Williams and his team did not “fully exercise his powers” under provincial law to marshal resources and enact measures to protect the public during the early months of the pandemic, nor did he embrace the “precautionary principle,” where any precaution thought necessary should be enacted as fast as possible, even when the science of the matter is not certain.

The auditors also found that Williams and his staff were largely aloof when it came to directing the 34 local public health units in the province.

“(Williams)did not issue directives to local medical officers of health to ensure public health units responded consistently to the COVID-19 pandemic, nor did he issue directives on their behalf,” auditors wrote.

She found that local medical officers of health were so frustrated in May they sent Williams a joint letter “stating there needed to be more direction and regional consistency” in the COVID-19 response.

Lysyk even said Williams was not actually technically in charge of the sprawling “command table” set up by Ontario to deal with the pandemic, nor was the table actually able to command anything or make any decisions without a later sign-off by the Ford cabinet.

She later found that the membership in the Command Table was nearly 500 people, making it bloated and unwieldly.

They also found that Williams and his team were denying the possibility of community transmission of the virus as late as March 25, even though hospitals were reporting that as early as March 14 and Public Health Ontario was on March 15.

This denial fundamentally hampered early testing efforts, as only people with a foreign travel history or known contact with a previously identified case could be tested during this time.

Earlier this week, the Ford government announced Williams intended to delay his retirement until Sept. 2021.

Speaking in response to the report on Wednesday, Health Minister Christine Elliott said her government has full confidence in Williams.

“I have complete confidence in Dr. Williams, he has over 30 years of experience in public health, not only as chief medical officer of health but as local medical officer of health in Thunder Bay for a number of years – he has the knowledge and experience to lead us in this pandemic.”

Lysyk’s findings show that time after time during the early months, orders and directives came far too late or contradicted prevailing directives in other jurisdictions.

–          On March 18, an associate chief medical officer of health from a local public health unit asked Williams and his team about use of masks by workers in long-term care homes. A directive requiring all long-term care workers to wear masks during shifts was not issued until April 8. Nearly 90 long-term care residents had died of the virus by that point.

–          On March 12, Ontario said it was still safe to leave for March Break, while medical officers in B.C. and Alberta said it was largely unsafe to do so.

–          Despite detecting the first outbreak of COVID-19 on a farm in late April, there was no provincial order or memo to protect migrant agricultural workers until late June.

–          Ontario did not have a universal recommendation on masking in indoor public spaces until October. By then, many local medical officers of health had gone ahead and done so on their own.

“Overall, we found that Ontario’s response to COVID-19 in the winter and the spring of 2020 was slower and more reactive relative to other jurisdictions,” auditors wrote.

Elliott said the government had issues with Lysyk’s report, calling it “a disappointment and in many respects a mischaracterization.”

She said there were a number of issues she tried to get Lysyk to amend before publishing the report, but Lysyk declined.

The issues included the suggestion that the command table is not led by Williams and medical experts, comparing the province’s response to that of British Columbia’s, and the fundamental accusation that Dr. Williams “did not lead” Ontario’s early response to the pandemic.

Liberal leader Steven Del Duca said the report showed the Ford government did not always listen to public health advice when navigating the pandemic.

“(The report) was a complete indictment of Doug Ford’s incompetence in terms of completely dropping the ball with respect to Ontario’s COVID-19 response,” he told CTV News Channel.

He said the faults cited in the report fell on Ford, not on Dr. Williams.

Meanwhile the NDP suggested the Ford government wanted Dr. Williams to stay on because he was pliable.

“Doug Ford says Dr. David Williams is a perfect dance partner – but only because Ford always gets to lead,” NDP deputy leader John Vanthof said in a statement.