It was quite a sight to see Ontario’s Premier choke up and almost shed a tear when he held a press conference during the pandemic’s third wave in the spring of 2021. A man with a reputation of being a tough politician. A rock-solid conservative leader with a hard-liner political background and a steadfast approach to making decisions and implementing them. What happened? He made decisions that turned out to be the wrong ones and that created unwanted consequences with pandemic measures that were too stringent. He was severely and publicly criticized. His emotional reaction was caught on camera and therefore became more known than he probably would have hoped for. But truth is that emotions were flying high off camera as well during the pandemic. No one was spared. Political leaders and all healthcare related leaders were under the gun. Mistakes happened, of course. When looking back, many would like to revisit certain moments. Hindsight 20/20 after the fact, they say…
After getting hit by one of the most significant worldwide crises of the past century, it is safe to say that we now have completed transitioning from crisis response to managing an ongoing threat. This more stable state of affairs has given us an opportunity to voice our opinions on how well we managed the pandemic and what we should have done differently. One important dimension that is under the microscope is the role our political leaders have played and continue to play. Have they done well? Have they gone too far? Not far enough? Some say no, some say yes and many just pick on the elements that made them uncomfortable or with which they disagree such as limiting our freedom. It’s normal and justified to criticize. But is it also fair to say that it is easier to pinpoint crisis management flaws after the fact than to recognize how difficult it may be to steer under such extreme pressure. There is no such thing as smooth sailing in a storm…
Can we even imagine what it’s like to be at the helm when a storm like the covid-19 pandemic hits? Everything we know changes overnight. The world seems to collapse everywhere. People run in fear or rush to buy toilet paper. The stock market melts down. Number of cases rise rapidly. The phone rings 24/7. Crisis management groups get organized. Scientific knowledge of the virus is piecemeal and evolves daily. Disinformation spreads like wildfire. Meeting after meeting the same questions are covered: what do we know? How is the crisis evolving? Death toll? What do we do? And then briefings with the media, press conferences, questions that cannot be answered yet… Being a political leader at the helm when such a storm rolls out is nerve crushing as each decision may have significant consequences.
Even though we need to take stock of lessons learned and revisit mistakes that were made to do so, it is fair to acknowledge that our elected leaders have done their best under these circumstances; whether it was enough or not. The pandemic also created issues way beyond the health threat it represents: a backlog of health treatments that were paused because of the significant pandemic pressure, an economy that is profoundly disrupted, national and provincial debts that have exploded, international mobility that is still restricted and a significant social unrest. Not easy to be a political leader within such a context… But make no mistake: politics are politics and will continue to be politics. I simply believe it is worth distinguishing, at least partially, the pandemic crisis management from the politics itself even if one is certainly embedded in the other… Did we witness some display of genuine courage at the political helm during the pandemic? Some say no, others say yes. I guess it is a matter of personal opinion, regardless of the fact that the nature of the political beast will never change. That’s why we remain cautious and why we have had opportunistic elections in British Columbia, in Nova Scotia and now at the federal level. Politics are politics. But still…
Looking back at the pandemic crisis, we can certainly criticize or question our federal, provincial and municipal governments’ leadership for what they did or did not do. There are many good reasons to do so. It may nevertheless be fair to do so all while trying to understand the circumstances under which leaders operated to make tough decisions. For one, we may learn important lessons from it. It could also shed a different light on our elected officials and perhaps on many other non-elected leaders. Steering in a storm is not easy. There is no such a thing as smooth sailing in a storm. Leadership is a complex beast to tame. Digging deeper in what makes for good leadership would certainly yield fascinating debates. But these are different stories and good ones for other articles…
In the meantime, may you be well, may you be happy.
B.