Canada employs 357,000 people in the federal civil service. While the nation is enjoying scarcity of everything from health care services to housing, the one thing we don’t lack for is bureaucrats. The Public Health Agency alone has 4,211 employees within it. Despite this embarrassment of riches when it comes to available, qualified bureaucrats, the Government of Canada has appointed as President of the Public Health Agency a person who appears to be wholly unqualified for such an important position.Why would they do this? .Maybe because Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) is more important than qualifications when it comes to government positions?Let's see. As a Muslim woman, Nancy Hamzawi checked off important boxes for DEI hires when they selected her to head the Public Health Agency. There is little doubt they would have preferred she be a lesbian or trans, but finding people in those categories is tough in the Muslim world and the government wants people to see more hijabs in the senior halls of power.While Hamzawi has a long resume as a federal bureaucrat, it is thin when it comes to public health experience. Her degree is in chemical engineering and most of her work as a bureaucrat was in environmental and climate change departments. Within those departments, she wasn’t known for maintaining any roles for long periods of time. From 2002 until today, she held 12 positions in various departments. Now though, she has gotten a plum appointment managing public health in Canada with a generous salary of $296,000 plus benefits. .Good for her I guess, but is this any good for Canada? Carney is supposed to be the reformer. He is supposed to be streamlining Canada’s bureaucracy and cutting away at the woke focus his predecessor Justin Trudeau created. One would think a top priority would be ensuring the most qualified people for senior positions are hired and appointed, rather than ones who what... help meet diversity quotas?Public health is a complicated and important file. While Hamzawi’s role is administrative more than health related, she should at least have some grounding in health care education or direct experience. She has none. A degree in chemical engineering doesn’t offer education in managerial skills or public communication either, which are part of the job..The role is public and some department heads are expected to lead by a degree of example. Hamzawi will be responsible for public health policies and telling Canadians how they can and should be living healthier, whether through inoculation or healthy living habits. Trust in public health authorities has already been deeply wounded due to the authoritarian approach to health policies from government agencies during the COVID-19 pandemic. Convincing some citizens to embrace public health initiatives will be tough and they need to see the people representing public health to be walking the talk.There is no gentle way to put it. Hamzawi is a very large lady and it makes her a poor symbol for public health practices.I know we live in a world of Dove soap commercials with an insistence that big is beautiful (and it certainly is to some,) we can’t pretend that big is healthy. Obesity-related health issues are an estimated $5.9 billion per year cost to the health system and they shorten the lifespans of millions of people. .Beyond direct healthcare implications, workplace productivity costs due to obesity were more than three times higher, reaching an estimated $21.7 billion due to increased absenteeism, reduced productivity, and lower workforce participation.Obesity is a serious Canadian health issue which the Public Health Agency should be battling. In appointing a person who doesn’t have it under control, they aren’t exactly inspiring other Canadians to do so.We may as well appoint a chain smoker to the head of the Heart and Lung association..Look, I am not the picture of health. I eat unhealthy foods and don’t get nearly as much exercise as I should. That said, I am not tasked with representing Canada’s top health agency and trying to encourage other Canadians to change their lifestyles.Hamzawi is surely a bright lady who does bring a lot of experience to the halls of bureaucracy in Canada. She surely isn’t the best qualified to head Canada’s Public Health Agency, however.Canada’s government service is bloated. Things will only get more expensive and more inefficient unless top positions are filled by the best people we can find for them.The corporate world is shedding DEI policies as the realities of the costs of such policies have come home.If the appointment if Hamzawi is indicative of the government plans, DEI in senior positions of government isn’t going away. It’s becoming more entrenched.
