Don’t forget about your audience

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/11/2023 (717 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“Know your audience” is one of those bromides writers, speechmakers and performers use to help channel their energy toward their intended goal.

That might have been on the minds of Preston Manning, the Reform party founder and 81-year-old conservative guru, and the other experts behind the Public Health Emergencies Governance Review Panel, which examined Alberta’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic for much of the past year.

The audience in question would be Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who commissioned the $2-million study in January, but also her right-wing supporters and vaccine opponents who helped her secure the United Conservative Party (UCP) leadership in 2022, and a majority government in Alberta’s election in May.

Smith was critical of many of the strategies her UCP predecessor, former Alberta premier Jason Kenney, enacted during the pandemic to prevent the spread of COVID-19, such as restrictions on public gatherings and the closure of schools.

One of the first decisions Smith made upon taking over as premier was firing Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta’s chief medical officer, who gave recommendations to Kenney.

Smith also promoted the use of fringe treatments such as ivermectin, a horse dewormer, and hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19, medications dismissed as ineffective by the mainstream medical community.

Meanwhile, she had to apologize for her comments on a podcast that referenced Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler when she said those who were vaccinated “fell for the charms of a tyrant,” despite the fact the vaccines have greatly curtailed the number of COVID-19 cases in Alberta and around the world.

So it’s no surprise Manning’s report, which came out Nov. 15, advises the Alberta government to consider “alternative” scientific theories in a future health crisis and use science only as part of a “balanced response” to decision-making.

While there are useful recommendations in Manning’s report — emergency-management agencies ought to be more involved in future pandemic crises — it focuses more on the economic damage the COVID-19 restrictions caused rather than the human cost for those who died from the virus and the toll on their families, as well as those who survived.

Manning himself is the report’s biggest problem. The whole process was touted to the public as being non-partisan, but his involvement has proven to be more troublesome than any of the recommendations he helped author.

More evidence Manning knew his audience emerged in an email to members of the federal Conservative elite he wrote the same day the report was released.

Manning advises the Conservatives use findings from the panel’s report as political ammunition against the federal Liberal/NDP coalition.

Most of the report’s findings, it turns out, were also part of a document Manning wrote in 2022 titled Report of the COVID commission, June 5, 2023, a “fictional, futuristic description” of a federal investigation into pandemic decision-making.

It puts into question how much of the Public Health Emergencies Governance Review Panel’s report derived from the knowledge from assembled experts, which included a former Supreme Court justice, or from Manning’s political motivations.

In short, the study and Manning’s process to “get to the truth” are deeply flawed and politically charged.

A proper examination of governments’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic would be a valuable endeavour. Learning which decisions made during the chaotic period proved to be useful and which ones were not would help politicians, medical officials and the public make the correct moves in the future.

What is less helpful is an echo chamber of the sort that Manning has penned for Smith’s Alberta government, where political science from only one side of the parliamentary spectrum is given prominence to the detriment of actual science, and achieving power — rather than serving the public — is its main intention.

What’s all this got to do with Manitoba?

Should Manitoba’s NDP move forward on its recent election promise to hold an inquiry into the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, we would hope that the new government would rise above this kind of petty partisanship and ensure that their process of inquiry does not simply and unnecessarily slam their political opponents.

Keep in mind that those of us who are tired of such political games are also part of your audience.

» Winnipeg Free Press and The Brandon Sun