Eves denies attempts to limit SARS review

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By GRAEME SMITH (G & M)

Renfrew, Ont. - Progressive Conservative Leader Ernie Eves denied yesterday that he tried to interfere with the investigation into severe acute respiratory syndrome, as criticism mounted about his government's handling of the crisis.

The commission that Mr. Eves appointed to investigate SARS formally complained this week after the director of the Ministry of Community, Family and Children's Services distributed a memo instructing staff to avoid speaking with SARS investigators until cleared by government lawyers.

"This has the potential to interfere with the investigation," a lawyer for the SARS commissioner, Mr. Justice Archie Campbell, wrote in a letter to the ministry.

Liberal MPP George Smitherman said the Eves government has "clearly been participating in a cover-up."

Ontario's chief public servant, cabinet secretary Tony Dean, responded yesterday with a letter to all deputy ministers that retracts the earlier memo and urges all government workers to co-operate with the commission.

"It is critical that employees know that they are to co-operate with the commission and that they are protected from any adverse employment action," Mr. Dean wrote.

Late yesterday, Mr. Eves issued a written statement saying the memo was not an attempt to "thwart an independent legal process."

"While I, as an elected official, understand politics sometimes involves excessive rhetoric, to besmirch the reputation of one of Ontario's finest public servants is unacceptable," Mr. Eves said, demanding an apology from Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty.

At an agricultural fair near Carleton Place, Ont., Mr. Eves distanced himself from the controversy with the same explanation he used to separate himself from last week's furor over meat inspections, saying he knew nothing of the bureaucrats' actions.

"I didn't have any part in preparing the memo or talking about whether it should be sent out or not, nor should I during the course of an election campaign," Mr. Eves said while visiting a plowing match.

"During a provincial-election campaign it is important to note that it isn't business as usual at Queen's Park. The elected officials in government, if there's an emergency or something, then they obviously would be required to act. . . . That's a different issue than making day-to-day policy decisions in government."

The government's handling of SARS was criticized on another front yesterday after David Naylor, dean of medicine at the University of Toronto, said his group of experts examining the outbreak found that chronic underfinancing of public-health services impeded Ontario's ability to react to SARS.

"There's some real basics that aren't getting done," Dr. Naylor said in a speech on Tuesday. He declined comment yesterday, but a spokeswoman said he stands by his remarks.

Mr. Eves responded to Dr. Naylor's criticism by blaming the federal government.

"In terms of underfunding, we are spending, as you know, $11-billion more on health care. Somebody who isn't spending a lot more is the federal government. They're still spending between 16 and 17 cents on the dollar, and so far a very inadequate response to SARS itself. So I would suggest that perhaps we might want to start there."

But while overall health funding has increased, the budget relevant to SARS - spending on public-health services - was shifted to municipalities by the province and remains inadequate, said Andrew Papadopoulos, executive director of the Association of Local Public Health Agencies.

"There is chronic underfunding of the system," Mr. Papadopoulos said. "And when you have a situation like SARS, it lays bare the weaknesses of the system."

Before 1998, municipalities paid only about 25 per cent of the cost for public health, Dr. Papadopoulos said, adding that now they pay about 50 per cent of the $400-million annual cost.

Mr. McGuinty offered the same criticism.

"The system has been cut to the bone," he said in Brighton, Ont. "We simply lack the capacity to be able to deal with these extraordinary stresses and strains on our health-care system."

The memo that sparked the uproar was sent on Sept. 4 by Nancy Liston, director of the Ministry of Community Family and Children's Services. It describes a three-step approvals process that was to occur "prior to any discussion by ministry staff with the [SARS] commission."

Douglas Hunt, counsel to the commission, said Ms. Liston's memo was a clear attempt to interfere with the investigation.

"This has the potential to interfere with the investigation, and we ask that you take immediate steps to countermand any directions to ministry employees that they are not free to deal with the commission without reporting to their managers and receiving instructions on how to proceed," Mr. Hunt wrote.

Mr. Smitherman said it is essential to protect the commission's integrity. "It's fundamentally critical that the commission and Mr. Justice Campbell have all of the opportunities to investigate all of the information that public servants have, in order to be able to help to get to the bottom of the circumstances that led to the deaths of so many [43] Ontarians."

The commission is expected to look into charges that Ontario was vulnerable to the SARS outbreak and slow to bring it under control because of years of cuts to public-health systems and to hospital budgets.

At the height of the outbreak, Health Minister Tony Clement conceded he was surprised at the number of nurses who could not obtain full-time jobs in cash-strapped hospitals and were forced to work part time in two or more hospitals. This increased the possibility of infections spreading.

"I was concerned that if we had one additional, large-scale crisis, that the system would crash," Mr. Clement said on June 12. In effect, the health-care system could not have dealt with the victims from a major subway crash or multivehicle highway accident in late April or in early May, he said.

Mr. Hunt said that since it was established on June 10, the SARS commission has conducted interviews to learn how SARS hit Ontario and how public-health agencies, hospitals and the government tried to cope.

Public hearings are scheduled for Toronto on Sept. 29 and 30 and on Oct. 1, just before election day on Oct. 2.

Mr. Hunt noted, "For the most part. the work of the commission is proceeding based on private, confidential interviews with people involved in some way with SARS - front-line workers, those people who got it, families, government people."

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