A traveller wears a mask upon his return to Toronto's Pearson airport on April 26, 2009, after spending four days in Mexico City.J.P. MOCZULSKI/The Globe and Mail
The Obama administration is showing leadership on the H1N1 influenza that is lacking in Canada. Where is the evidence that Canada is taking the swine flu seriously?
The White House has communicated a sense of rising to a deadly challenge. President Barack Obama participated by telephone from Italy last week in an H1N1 Influenza Preparedness Summit. Cabinet secretaries of health, homeland security and education joined in. So, too, did health and school officials from around the United States. The governors of several states, linked by video screens, asked questions. Swine flu is apparently an urgent matter.
Nothing like what the U.S. leaders said has been uttered by their counterparts in Canada. "The potential for a significant outbreak in the fall is looming," Mr. Obama said. "We want to make sure that we are not promoting panic, but we are promoting vigilance and preparation." "We must avoid complacency," said Kathleen Sebelius, Health and Human Services Secretary. "This flu is not over," said Thomas Frieden, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
By failing to express a similar urgency, Canada's leaders are indicating it is okay to be complacent. In Saskatoon, a 25-year-old mother of four young children died of swine flu after being sent home from hospital, raising questions about medical vigilance and readiness. There has been no broad-based preparedness summit in Canada. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has not spoken out on the issue. The public has not been invited to witness a question-and-answer session with officials across the country.
"Canada is well prepared for these events thanks to years of advanced planning and close co-operation with provinces, territories and health professionals across the country," David Butler-Jones, Canada's chief public health officer, told a news conference on June 11. "The degree of collaboration we've seen has been unprecedented."
Canadians are asked to accept that on trust. In the U.S., people can actually watch and listen to the collaboration. While Canadian officials pat themselves on the back in public, their behind-the-scenes efforts suggest reasons for grave concern. Ventilators, and the people who maintain and provide them, are expected to be in short supply. Guidelines are being drafted to help medical officials decide who gets prime access to life-saving treatment and who has to wait. "We may be faced with two young persons competing for the same health-care resources," Theresa Tam, of the Public Health Agency of Canada, told this newspaper. That is a cause for concern, surely.
In the United States, the schools are speaking in public with health officials, and the President himself, who has no shortage of other issues on his plate, is discussing plans and urging vigilance. Washington is even offering a $2,500 prize for the best YouTube public-service announcement. The country is engaged. In Canada, by contrast, leaders meet privately and occasionally emerge to say comforting words, which leaves Canadians on their own to wonder, and worry.