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|Monday May5, 2003 | BACK | NEXT McLellan caught flat-footed
by Angelo Persichilli Even after the intervention of the World Health Organization asking people not to travel to Canada Ms. McLellan decided not to take any active role. To the media asking for interviews, the answer was "the minister will not give any one-on-one interviews" and "probably there will be some media availability late this afternoon."
I called also on behalf of some Italian journalists here in Toronto from Italy
who were asking for an interview on the matter: hundreds of Italians, like
citizens from any other country in the world, were ready to cancel trips to
Canada. The answer was the same: no interviews. Torontoıs name has been
clobbered all over the world because of SARS and Canada has been treated like
a Third World country because of a health issue McLellanıs communications people should have been begging journalists to put the message out reassuring the Joe Public about the safety of our cities. They should have been calling on all the major international broadcasting networks asking for air time. Instead, we had a minister who kept hiding while the prestige of Canada, in general, and Toronto, in particular, was demolished throughout the world. Ms. McLellan is the same minister who last week blasted her colleague Heritage Minister Sheila Copps, who had the day before called the SARS outbreak a "national emergency" and "an epidemic." The irony is that while Ms. McLellan was saying that Ms. Copps' statement was "the height of irresponsibility," the World Health Organization was advising the world not to travel to Canada. So much for Coppsı irresponsibility. Only on Wednesday afternoon, and, according to my sources, after a direct intervention from the PMO, Ms. McLellan gave some statements about the "outrageous decision" of the WHO. Ms. McLellan is right when she says that the situation is under control in Toronto, but it is so thanks to the work of hundreds of health-care workers who have been risking their own lives. The tragedy is that thereıs been a incredible lack of communication to the rest of the world about the beautiful job done by those professional individuals. CNN has been talking about SARS and Toronto since the beginning of the war in Iraq on March 19. International organizations have been cancelling dozens of conventions in our megacity and American broadcasters have, for some time, started to advise people not to travel to Canada. Ms. McLellan knew, or she should have known, that Toronto was in the middle of a crisis. Ms. McLellan hasnıt been in Toronto lately or spoken to tourism operators or been in a Chinese restaurant. Had she done so, she would have understood better the concern expressed by many people, including Sheila Copps. Yes, it is now also an economic problem, caused by a health issue. Who better than the minister of health to reassure the international community that Toronto is still a safe place to be? |