To those in Toronto who have been demanding political leadership on SARS — like Rex Murphy on CBC, who says our leaders must be engaged and show it; or others, who want inspiration or assurance that everything will work out — I have two words: Mayor Mel.

I was one of the 19,000 plus at the Air Canada Centre for the wondrous Game Six of the opening playoff series, but after Mel’s ravings on how we’re all still standing upright, I’m wondering if I erred. Only he could have done it.

Sometimes, a total vacuum is better than leadership if your leader is — oh, button it, Rick. You’re just jumpy like so many, muttering to yourself because of this thing. At least target someone less overtly dippy. Okay. Take Premier Ernie Eves . . .

Ten days ago, he did the requisite lunch in Chinatown, to prove it was all fine, and said, in reply to questions on people who were hurting, “the bill would be tens of billions” if he started “to write cheques.” As if the only way he can deal with the issue is the way a small businessman would, like the guy who had just served him.

What is it with our leaders? They know they’re supposed to do something called leading but seem to have no idea what it looks like. Let me try to sketch it.

People are not looking for daredevil acts like lunch in Chinatown or drinking a gallon of lake water. Nor do they want cheap assurances that we only have fear to fear. It’s not about showing you are engaged, it’s about being engaged. But why do they want an engaged leader?

Clearly, the issue requires expertise, in this case medical; why not leave it to experts, then, as Ernie Eves seems inclined to? I think people know that experts can get wrapped up in their own expertise, and differ among themselves. So they want someone at the table who brings intelligence and common sense, asks smart questions, is skeptical — of overly positive and negative “expert” views — and who has the public good as a priority and will offer or can find the resources to act. No one is always right, of course; they don’t expect that.

Rudy Giuliani’s name keeps coming up as a model. He didn’t just get out there on 9/11 to show he was engaged, he was engaged. You had a sense he knew enough to ask questions of the police and fire experts, with the interest of the population in mind. He asked on their behalf. That’s what created confidence, not that he was positive and feisty.

How did we get to this point? I won’t say we have the leadership we deserve, but it could have been predicted. We are at the end of a twenty year stretch in which politics was widely devalued in favour of economics, and it was claimed that “market forces” could handle everything — health, schools, welfare, the penal system — if only government got out of the way. Leaders were elected on anti-government slogans. They spent their time dismantling public programs and selling them off. CEOs were promoted as heroic leaders. Bestsellers described takeover wars and leveraged buyouts. Men like Air Canada’s Robert Milton and Nortel’s John Roth surfed this wave as if they had generated it, like the guy born on third base who thinks he hit a triple. They were in the right place for a short time.

Now it’s back to politics and the public interest, but where are the leaders? The whole set of ideas got dropped somewhere. When Ernie Eves agonizes over the bill for SARS and not much else, it’s hardly a shock.

This wave reached Ontario in 1995, with Mike Harris’s election. In 1997, the province’s chief medical officer of health, Richard Schabas, told the then premier at a cabinet meeting that certain cuts were menacing public health — as proved prophetic in the Walkerton case. The premier turned his back, literally. “As far as I was concerned,” Dr. Schabas told the Walkerton inquiry, “the premier was turning his back on public health.” You can imagine the eyerolls at Queen’s Park if anyone spoke up for “public” anything after that.

Now the same ministers, minus Mike Harris, seem dependent on the lowly public health officials. They’re trying to learn the lingo. I don’t mean they’re insincere, but they look like guys who just got on a strange horse going in a funny direction. Till yesterday, they were trying to privatize health care and everything else. Today, it’s become hard to understand just what part of medicine is not essentially public.

There’s been a remarkable confluence in the past few days. On Wednesday, police laid the first criminal charges in the Walkerton disaster. And yesterday, Dr. Schabas, now a hospital head, spoke out on SARS, saying the situation is far less dire than is generally portrayed. He didn’t mention his earlier confrontation with this government on a public health issue, but it’s been clear since then that he is no burbly cheerleader. Let’s hope he is as right this time as he was last.

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Rick Salutin

Rick Salutin is a Canadian novelist, playwright and critic. He is a strong advocate of left wing causes and writes a regular column in the Toronto Star.