Cabinet has awarded Dr. Theresa Tam a 22% pay raise. The increase to $324,000 a year was approved despite missteps including Tam’s 2020 announcement that COVID “is largely under control” and her recommendation that Canadians use Kleenex to ward off infection..Tam was appointed chief public health officer in 2016. Cabinet in an executive order effective Tuesday raised her maximum pay $59,400 from $265,000 to $324,000 a year, a 22.4% hike. Tam’s contract was extended for three years..According to Blacklock's Reporter, the pay hike followed Tam’s acknowledgement she underestimated infection rates from the outbreak of the pandemic. “Yes, we only got the tip of the iceberg,” Tam told reporters last January 14..Tam had based COVID plans on an anticipated 10% infection rate. “Transmission is largely under control,” she said June 29, 2020. “Canada is aiming for strong epidemic control over the course of the pandemic with less than ten percent of the population infected overall.” Epidemiologists at the time said a 50% infection rate was standard..Tam had also reassured Canadians her Public Health Agency was fully prepared for COVID, a claim contracted by internal memos. Canada was “in a better position to respond to a variety of emerging infections,” Tam said January 25, 2020..Records showed the Agency in fact went into the pandemic with a severe shortage of medical supplies after landfilling millions of items to save $900,000 a year in warehouse leasing costs. Landfilled goods included 5.4 million high-grade N95 masks, 2.4 million surgical masks, more than a million medical gloves and 3,010 surgical gowns..Tam in Parliament Hill briefings also issued conflicting advice on precautions like wearing masks. The Agency in a January 29, 2020 briefing note said no mask was necessary even for Canadians traveling to Chinese cities under quarantine like Wuhan. Tam in other remarks said:.• “Right now there is no need to use a mask for well people” (March 28, 2020);• “On the question of masks, first of all we ask that people with symptoms cover up their cough or cover up their sneezes. So, it can be with a Kleenex” (March 29, 2020);• “Putting a mask on an asymptomatic person is not beneficial obviously if you’re not infected” (March 30, 2020);• “What we worry about is actually the potentially negative aspects of wearing masks where people are not protecting their eyes or, you know, other aspects of where the virus could enter your body, and that gives you a false sense of confidence” (March 30, 2020);• “The effectiveness of the use of non-medical masks has not been well demonstrated” (April 1, 2020);• “You have to be careful you’re not putting your finger in your eye, or when you’re pulling your mask on and off you’re not touching your face in other ways” (April 1, 2020);• “It hasn’t been proven really to protect you from getting the virus” (April 3, 2020)..Cabinet in the first weeks of the pandemic praised Tam and other Agency managers for their pandemic response. Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland at one news conference described public health officers as national celebrities..“I have observed as a former journalist that chief public health officers across the whole country have become this generation’s rock stars,” Freeland said April 14, 2020. ”That is entirely appropriate.”
