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Re. “Hinshaw’s firing shows the era of COVID retribution not over yet,” Don Braid, June 23
The chief victim is Dr. Deena Hinshaw, former chief medical officer of health.
Danielle Smith criticized Hinshaw during the UCP leadership campaign. As premier, she fired the doctor last November.
Hinshaw took employment in B.C. Then AHS hired her for a part-time position with the Indigenous Wellness Core program.
As the CBC recounts in a news story, the backlash against her re-appearance had been fierce.
Everybody knew, but nobody would admit, that the hiring would not stand with the premier’s office.
Hinshaw was usefully branded as the sole instigator of COVID measures that angered many people, and certainly inflamed Smith’s libertarian instincts.
And yet, every single thing Hinshaw ordered was approved by nine UCP cabinet ministers in a special COVID committee, led by then-premier Jason Kenney.
As anger began to rise, the government could not admit that they were responsible for measures from vaccination requirements to masking.
So they started blaming the experts, including both Hinshaw and AHS under the leadership of Dr. Verna Yiu. Her employment, too, was terminated.
As the person who signed public health orders, Hinshaw was the most vulnerable target (even though, as CMOH, she was a civil servant at the subordinate level of assistant deputy minister).
One close observer vividly describes Hinshaw’s fate: “Modern politics are absolutely brutal. What you do is load all the crap into one person’s bag and then push that person out the door.”
It’s assumed the person will never return with the ugly memories packed in that bag.
People who worked with Hinshaw describe her as humble, caring, hard-working and decent to everyone. They are loyal to this day and appalled by what’s happened to her.
Hinshaw laboured under incredible pressure for months on end, appearing in public nearly every day. As the face of COVID measures, she began to absorb the anger as well as praise.
In the end she was the perfect sacrifice. And sacrifices, as we know, are always made to a higher god.
One result of the most recent controversy over the Hinshaw potential position in the Indigenous Wellness Core program is anger in the Indigenous community. Dr. Esther Tailfeathers quit her AHS job as medical lead in the Welfare Core program.
The CBC reports how the group first looked for an Indigenous person to fill the role, but eventually decided Hinshaw had the perfect blend of credentials.
Tailfeathers was upset that a person accepted by the Indigenous community was then vetoed from above. And it happens during Indigenous History Month.
Dr. Verna Yiu fell from her top AHS post because the government didn’t feel she was under full control. Kenney even claimed he’d been drastically misinformed about hospital surge capacity — a claim that didn’t stand up to scrutiny.
Smith, who claimed the whole of AHS “doesn’t know what it’s doing,” fired the board, all of whose members had been appointed by the same UCP government.
She appointed a single supervisor, Dr. John Cowell, to run the whole system in close collaboration with her.
Apart from Kenney, five other members of the COVID cabinet committee have vanished from politics. Travis Toews, Sonya Savage and Doug Schweitzer quit. Tyler Shandro and Kaycee Madu were defeated on May 29.
The sole remainders are Rebecca Schulz, Ric McIver and Jason Nixon.
Association with COVID was dangerous not just to health but to careers and aspirations. As the official disappearing of Deena Hinshaw shows, the age of retribution is not over yet.
Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald.
