From Dr. Theresa Tam to Osgoode Hall’s Faculty Council
When the pandemic first became a reality late last spring, it was not obvious what the world would look like six months down the road. Many – including myself – were expecting a shut-down of at least a couple months, but nobody could have predicted that we would still be practicing social distancing on a society-wide scale in mid-September. Yet, here we are.
And with these social distancing measures still in place, it’s important to question whether some of these measures, if implemented earlier, would have softened the severity of the infection in Canada and elsewhere. One remembers Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, telling Canadians in early, mid, and late March – the most crucial early days of the initial outbreak of the virus in Canada – that wearing medical masks did not provide any meaningful protection from the disease. One similarly remembers the Director-General of the World Health Organization, Dr. Tedros Adhanom, giving the same anti-mask advice (Dr. Tam’s advice was partially based on the directives of the WHO). And, of course, one notes the increasingly severe mask-wearing mandates we see across the globe today – five months after Dr. Tam and Dr. Adhanom’s advice to the contrary.
However, to be fair to Dr. Tam and Dr. Adhanom, there is a perfectly reasonable theory that explains how they could have made such a grave error, especially during the critical early days of the pandemic. The theory goes like so: in the early days of the pandemic, the world was caught flat-footed, and governments across the globe had to make tough choices, especially with respect to medical personal-protective equipment (PPE). As such, governments decided that limited stocks of PPE should be prioritized for healthcare workers, and that the general public would have to make-do until more supplies could become available. But, in free and fair societies in the West, it is not so easy to tell the citizenry that they should not, or cannot, purchase and acquire potentially life saving protective supplies. Hence, public health officials begin to publicly declare – incorrectly – that PPE, specifically masks, are ineffective and that the public should avoid them, all while frantically trying to acquire them for health care workers behind the scenes.
Perhaps this remains an unconfirmed theory. But a conspiracy it is not. If true, it would simply mean that Dr. Tam, Dr. Adhanom, and healthcare professionals around the globe were acting with good intentions. There was no intent to harm, the intention was to act in the best interests of the public – just without the public’s knowledge, or consent. And see, here is the issue with good intentions – the road to hell is paved with them, as the saying goes.
Likewise, at Osgoode Hall Law School, we have been witness to a similar case of pandemic-induced “good intentions,” and their inevitable consequences. As a returning student, one is immediately reminded of the Faculty Council’s decision to not provide letter grade evaluations to Osgoode students last Spring. The upshot of this decision is now being felt throughout the Osgoode student body, as many of us finish our summering and articling applications to major firms here in Toronto and across the country.
For many students, including myself, it now appears we have incomplete, blemished school records. Perhaps some students, through admirable hard work and perseverance, scored straight A’s in their first semester last year, but many at Osgoode Hall did not. And it was their right – or so they believed – at over $12,000 in tuition a semester, that they would have the winter semester evaluations to “make up for it.” Yet, due to the good intentions of our Professors – many very well paid, with little-to-no employment concerns, and whom most-certainly received letter-grades every single semester for their much less relatively expensive legal education – they did not.
See, the Faculty Council at Osgoode Hall made the same mistake that Dr. Tam and Dr. Adhanom made. They thought they knew better than the people they were supposed to serve. It is bizarre to me that our health officials potentially thought that transparently lying to the public was a good idea in anything but the immediate short term. It is equally bizarre to me how the faculty at one of the most expensive law schools in the country thought that most students would be supportive of receiving absolutely no substantive evaluation for their winter semester courses. I understand the Faculty Council believed they were acting in the best interests of students, specifically those students whom they viewed as suffering inequitable consequences from the pandemic. However, the Faculty Council effectively took a situation that was inequitable to a few, and made it inequitable to many, many more.
The problem for both our public health officials, and the Faculty Council is that cause does always eventually equal effect. Consequences are inevitable, regardless of intent. Lying to the public – or giving them bad advice – eventually leads to public distrust. Making erratic, irresponsible and irrational decisions as faculty, leads to you being torched in the first issue of Obiter Dicta, and rightfully so. Cause, and effect.
Like they say, the road to hell was paved with good intentions.