Canada’s Public Health Agency has quietly admitted it was unprepared, untrained, and disorganized during the COVID-19 outbreak that killed more than 60,000 Canadians — even as its executives handed out medallions and bonuses to themselves.An internal evaluation covering 2019 to 2024 conceded senior management had no proper emergency training when the pandemic hit. “A lack of public health emergency management training was seen as an important gap in the early COVID-19 response at all levels of the agency including senior management,” auditors wrote.The report follows a damning 2021 audit that found the agency riddled with “confusion,” “limited public health expertise” and “capacity gaps.” .In the opening days of the crisis, officials sent most employees home, unable to cope.The agency also churned through three presidents in just over a year, including Iain Stewart, a $321,000-a-year bureaucrat censured by Parliament for contempt after refusing to hand over records on the firing of Chinese scientists in Winnipeg.Despite the chaos, the agency in 2022 ordered 5,000 “COVID coins” — medallions in velvet presentation boxes — to celebrate every manager and staffer for their “commitments towards pandemic relief.” .In 2021, it also paid $1.45 million in executive bonuses, averaging $18,600 each.“Almost everybody got a bonus,” Conservative MP Kelly McCauley said at the time. “These are very expensive participation ribbons.”The new evaluation claims the agency has updated its plans and learned its lessons. It does not explain why the managers hired to prepare for a pandemic were incapable of doing the job when it mattered most.
