Page - 96 - in VULNERABLE - The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19

VULNERABLE96 dysfunctional federation: despite measures the federal government imposed at national borders, the provinces proved unable to coor- dinate competently on basic measures within Canada, such as iden- tifying the ill and ensuring they were isolated. All this was grimly admitted in a report completed for Cabinet amid the second wave by Vincent Massey, the future Governor General, which read: “A fed- eral department of public health is justified now that it is clear that Provincial Governments are no longer competent to deal with Public Health in its new and wider application, and that their efforts require correlation and amplification.”6 Yet the same incoordination and provincial inability of a cen- tury ago is now repeating with COVID-19. There is no uniformity in the quarantine or physical distancing rules of provinces; even on the seemingly uncontroversial matter of screening who has the dis- ease, no two provinces agree.7 Often the disunity is tragic farce: in mid-March as Quebec’s premier called to isolate returning travellers, Ontario’s premier encouraged families to “go away, have a good time, enjoy yourself” for spring break,8 and the prime minister dithered, perhaps because of his health minister’s scientifically wrong opinion that shutting borders to disease was “not effective at all.”9 While not the only element underpinning an effective, coordi- nated response across Canada, proper data sharing is an indispens- able component. Canada should be better coordinated than this, because between the Spanish Flu and COVID-19 was the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) epidemic of 2003, which hit Canada worse than any other country outside Asia, and which furnished fed- eral and provincial governments impetus to prepare effectively for the future. They did not. 6. The  Report  to  the  Vice-Chairman  of  the  War  Committee, File 10-3-1, vol 2, vol 19, RG 29 (Ottawa: Library and Archives Canada). 7. Brieanne Olibris & Amir Attaran, “Lack of Coordination and Medical Disinfor- mation in Canadian Self-Assessment Tools for COVID-19” [2020] medRxiv, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.14.20065631. 8. Global News, “Coronavirus Outbreak: Doug Ford Tells Families to ‘Have Fun’ and ‘Go Away’ During March Break”, Global  News  (2020), online: <https://global- news.ca/video/6668414/coronavirus-outbreak-doug-ford-tells-families-to-have- fun-and-travel-during-march-break>. 9. Global News, “Coronavirus Outbreak: Hajdu Stresses Shutting Down Borders Over Illness ‘Not Effective at All”, Global  News  (2020), online: <https://global- news.ca/video/6560512/coronavirus-outbreak-hajdu-stresses-shutting-down- borders-over-illness-not-effective-at-all>.