Probably no one should have been surprised by Danielle Smith’s bizarre defence of the recently released – and universally criticized — report on Alberta’s response to the COVID-19 crisis. After all, this is the woman who once told journalists “Canada is not a federation.” Evidently she is capable of saying almost anything with a straight face, no matter how ridiculous. But the arguments Smith mustered to defend the discredited COVID report have reached a new low in public discourse.
That the report itself was widely panned is hardly surprising. It was produced by a task force comprised of well-known anti-vaxxers and vaccine skeptics, all of whom were personally appointed by the premier. (And all of whom had an axe to grind with various governments, several having lost a job, filed a lawsuit or publicly attacked masking and other regulations, as Mount Royal University political science professor Duane Bratt points out in an upcoming book on COVID policies in Alberta.)
Naturally this task force produced the very result she expected, namely, a report filled with harsh criticism of any and all positive evidence-based measures taken by the previous government to protect Albertans. For example, the report “recommends halting the use of COVID-19 vaccines without full disclosure of their potential risks, ending their use in healthy children and teenagers, conducting further research into their effectiveness, establishing support for vaccine-injured individuals, and providing an opt-out mechanism from federal public health policy.”[i] Even more disturbing is the report’s conclusion that federal and provincial health authorities should not have taken a “restrictive approach” to certain drugs, including ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, which is used to treat malaria. Despite all evidence to the contrary, the report also claims there is no “quality data” that “supports the idea that vaccines provide better protection than natural exposure to circulating variants”, and recommends public health information “avoid ideological bias geared toward maximizing vaccine coverage.” [ii]
Adding insult to injury, the report also recommends that in future the Alberta government should “protect public discussion of alternative medical treatments” under the provincial Human Rights Act and prevent regulatory bodies from using “professionalism or codes of conduct” to obstruct the use of such approved medications for off-label use. This measure was largely prompted by concerns that some nurses, doctors, and/or emergency workers in Alberta, and elsewhere, were sanctioned by their professional association for publicly expressing unorthodox views contrary to the established position of that association. According to the task force this was unacceptable censorship, rather than maintaining professional standards. [iii]
Last but hardly least, the report turns its guns on the media, implying that reporting on the pandemic and government efforts was biased, and recommends that Smith’s government require any media reporting on health issues to “cite levels of supporting evidence and publicly disclose any political or financial competing interests that may influence their reporting, including publicly disclosing the dollar value and conditions of their public health and pharmaceutical contracts.”[iv]
Medical and scientific experts have reacted to these conclusions with predictable outrage. They have accused the authors of citing flawed retracted studies, sub-stack posts, You Tube videos and personal experiences “as if they were the equivalent of peer-reviewed articles” and dismissed the $2 million report as not only worthless but dangerous.[v] A group of leading experts in immunology, virology and infectious diseases published an open letter to the premier in which they “collectively request that Alberta’s COVID-19 Pandemic Response Report be officially dismissed for use as a source of information for public and provincial policy” because it “fails to reflect the body of established scientific evidence.” The Alberta Medical Association did not mince words either, describing the report as “anti-science” and “anti-evidence.”[vi]
Needless to say the premier staunchly defended the report, which is prominently posted on the government’s website. Like her federal counterpart, Pierre Poilievre, Smith has achieved her current popularity in large measure by opposing many of the measures provincial and federal governments took to effectively contain the pandemic, so she can hardly turn around now and disavow the off-the-wall views of her supporters who criticized them.
But this time Smith went further in her defence of those views. In the past she employed some sort of libertarian ‘freedom of expression’ argument, in which she declared everyone is entitled to their opinions, however wrong they may be. This time, however, she ventured into uncharted waters. She actually defended the contents of the report as exemplary ‘good’ science, thereby standing the definition of science itself on its head.
“I will always seek out contrarian voices just to make sure I make the best decision. We always have to make sure that, in a world where we care about science, all voices are heard. That’s what science is. You actually hear different viewpoints, so that you can make solid decisions on what you hear.” [vii]
If this sounds like an attack on knowledge, and on experts, professionals and educated elites, it is. Pierre Poilievre’s “elites and gatekeepers” mantra fits in nicely here as well. (Remember his rejection of the views of “so-called experts” on climate change, arguing instead that he would listen to “the common sense of the common people”?[viii])
Why is this so important? Because a belief in science is a fundamental underpinning of modern democracies. Rejection of scientific methods and evidence will lead, as the extreme case of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution demonstrates, to chaos and the collapse of the established order.
In its most basic form that order has been around for centuries. The Scientific Revolution of the 16-17th centuries literally created the modern world, and the Age of Enlightenment that followed in the 18th century applied the scientific concepts of rationalism and empiricism to the realm of philosophy and governance. These principles became the very foundation of western liberal democracies. The secular governments that emerged (as opposed to ones driven by religious dogma or ideological rigidity), were expected to develop policies based on scientific evidence. And this scientific approach to governing was expected to create societies where citizens were as free and productive as possible.
Many would argue the 19th and 20th centuries confirmed the validity of this scientific approach to governing. In addition the importance attributed to public education systems, and merit-based bureaucracies, guaranteed a continued commitment to evidence-based decision-making. The result was a citizenry with a high level of trust in government, and in science.
But just as many citizens’ knowledge of fundamental democratic principles has recently been shown to be dangerously wanting, so, unfortunately, has their grasp of basic scientific principles. Apparently the lack of basic civics courses in public education has been accompanied by a lack of solid grounding in the fundamentals of scientific research.
With the rise of misinformation and disinformation campaigns on social media it has become painfully obvious that the public’s trust in science is not based on a good understanding of those scientific principles or, indeed, of empirical research generally. And nowhere was this ignorance more blatantly on display than in the area of health policy during the COVID pandemic. Reacting to a crisis, many citizens wanted certainty. As a result, they were quick to reject the advice of scientific experts if their advice changed over time due to greater knowledge based on evidence and research. [ix] Put another way, many people failed to understand that a basic element of scientific research inevitably involves change. But that change will be based on new and better information, not “contrarian opinions.”
In short, it seems that a good chunk of the general public in Canada and most other western democracies is hopelessly ignorant of the fundamentals of science, and therefore dangerously vulnerable to blatant falsehoods. Which means that liberal democracies are themselves in peril. This would be bad enough, but if democratically elected leaders are equally ignorant, the stage is set for even greater policy failures. Someone should provide Danielle Smith with a crash course in Science 101.
[i] https://open.alberta.ca/publications/albertas-covid-19-pandemic-response
[ii] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-alberta-releases-secret-report-into-the-provinces-covid-response/
[iii] https://macdonaldlaurier.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/New-Censorship-_-FINAL.pdf
[iv] Op cit.
[v] https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/academics-alberta-covid-report
[vi] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-doctors-scientists-oppose-covid-report-1.7445487
[vii] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/alberta/article-defending-covid-report-danielle-smith-says-its-important-to-hear-broad/
[viii] [iv] https://ottawa.citynews.ca/2024/03/27/conservatives-blast-pro-carbon-price-economists-as-so-called-experts/
[ix] https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2017/01/30/512402110/what-makes-science-science
