The public focus of COVID-19 in Nova Scotia has been the catastrophe at Northwood’s Halifax campus, where 53 residents died from the disease over 33 days. That’s 84 per cent of the 63 COVID-19 deaths in the province. It’s five percentage points above the Canadian average for long term care facilities (LTCs), which itself compares poorly with the average of 42 per cent among other wealthy countries.

That’s bad enough, but it gets worse. At least four more people in smaller LTCs have succumbed to the virus, for a total of 57 deaths or almost 91 per cent of the provincial total.

This information comes not from the province, but Ryerson University in Toronto. The NS Department of Health and Wellness (DHW) stopped responding to my questions about the other LTCs a week ago. Reporters got similar treatment, but I have more time than they do and found the National Institute on Ageing at Ryerson. The NIA has been tracking the pandemic across the country using news stories and sources of their own. I’ve pasted a screenshot of their site below. The actual map is interactive. The web address and advice on getting the best results are in the caption.

You can see Ryerson’s data in tabular format below.

Name of LTC	Location	Owner/Operator	Resident Infections	Staff Infections	Resident Deaths (NB: no staff deaths recorded)
Magnolia Manor	Enfield	Stevens Group	2	3	0
Drummond Hall	Halifax	Shannex	0	1	0
Lewis Hall	Dartmouth	Shannex	0	1	0
Harris Hall	Dartmouth	Shannex	0	1	0
Bissett Court	Cole Harbour	Shannex	0	1	0
Arbourstone	Halifax	Shannex	0	1	0
Maplestone	Halifax	Shannex	1	0	0
R.K. MacDonald Nursing Home	Antigonish	Non-profit society	0	1	0
Ocean View Continuing Care	Eastern Passage	Non-profit society	2	3	0
Northside Community Guest Home	North Sydney	Non-profit society	4	0	1
Admiral Long Term Care	Dartmouth	Gem Health Care Group	2	11	1
Harbourstone Enhanced Care	Sydney River	Shannex	3	0	2
Northwood Halifax campus	Halifax	Non-profit society	246	99	53
Subtotals			260	122	57
Plus 10 infections reported but not not linked to a specific LTC
Total LTC infections, Staff+Residents	392
NS infections to date	1,067
% infections related to LTCs	36.7%
% of deaths related to LTCs	90.5%

On May 6, DHW switched to reporting active cases at LTCs instead of a cumulative count, making it impossible to accurately understand what was happening in the sector. Perhaps it was a well-intentioned mistake but, if so, it could have easily been corrected anytime during the following 75 days.

None of this is scandalous, but it makes me wonder whether the government is acting in good faith at a time when trust is vital.

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The midst of a deadly pandemic seems like an odd time to bury facts about its spread. As I went through news stories to verify Ryerson’s data, I found recurring complaints about DHW’s refusal to provide detailed information. Online news “briefings” restrict each reporter to one question and one follow-up, whether or not the question has been answered. Further, the government decides how much time is allotted for questions. Premier Stephen McNeil bristles and fires off a rebuke when someone asks about a verboten topic such as the need for an inquiry into the Coronavirus deaths or the human slaughter that began in Portapique. He forgets he’s an employee, not a boss. As someone who came to politics from business, he may not understand the difference.

As an obedient citizen I, unlike pushy reporters, would never ask a question the premier didn’t want to hear, but here’s what I politely requested from DHW via email more than a week ago:

• Name of each LTC stricken by COVID-19
• # Resident infections at each
• # Staff infections
• # Resident cases Resolved
• # Resident Deaths
• # Residents who died in LTC
• # Staff deaths
• # Number staff cases resolved
• Date of first case
• Date of most recent case
• # Active Cases

I got nothing in reply, so yesterday I began calling LTCs and this morning I coincidentally got an email reply from DHW. It turned out staff are “unable to easily pull” the information I wanted.

If that’s true, then we’re in more trouble than we thought. I know people who could pull that information from an Excel spreadsheet in about 20 minutes. And DHW uses a database that is reputedly better-suited to the task.

Me, I’m thankful we have universities in Toronto backing us up.

Information about births and deaths are part of the glue that holds a society together. In a pandemic, details about deaths are vital if you want people to understand the risk they face. For example, it’s easy to ignore a report that a number of anonymous people died in some anonymous place. We do it all the time. But if instead you read that your long-forgotten college roommate died from COVID-19 at the other end of the province, you pay attention. Suddenly it has become more real, more personal, and you might even be inspired to wear a mask inside public spaces.

Details also promote accountability. Friends and relatives of a deceased person can easily spot mistakes and lies when they can see a name attached to them. It’s why the courts are reluctant to hide the names of people involved in criminal trials. Judges know their credibility rests on transparency. Information vacuums are inevitably filled with misinformation, distrust and conspiracy theories.

If anything good came out of the Northwood tragedy, it was the way it heightened our understanding of how serious the disease is and how close it came to being out of control.

McNeil’s “review” of what happened at Northwood is supposed to help all concerned improve their policies and procedures. No doubt. But if you want to know what his government did, or failed to do, for LTCs; or why it rejected Northwood’s pleas for help as far back as 2017, you’ll want a public inquiry that names names.

But you won’t get it.

And if you want answers about RCMP actions in Portapique, or lack thereof, you can just pound sand.

One question, one follow-up. Next please.

And shut the blazes up.

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Further to yesterday’s post, if you’re inclined to send an email to the chief medical examiner, the following might be of use.

Address it to justweb@gov.ns.ca .

NOTE: I’ve received conflicting advice from varying sources about the correct email address. I recommend using the one above, which comes from the department web site, and addressing your message to Dr. Bowes’ attention. Justice Dept. staff will redirect it to the right mailbox. I’m sorry for the confusion.

Request to Chief Medical Examiner for fatality investigations

Dear Dr. Bowes,
I am requesting your office to conduct fatality investigations into the COVID-19 deaths at the Halifax campus of the Northwood Centre and the homicides committed by Gabriel Wortman beginning in Portapique, NS, on the night of April 18, 2020.
I believe the Fatality Investigations Act gives you grounds these inquiries.
You can find more information on Bill Turpin’s blog at https://wp.me/p6FgqN-1gb .

Electoral boundaries commission proposes four restored seats

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Three Acadian ridings back on the map

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One for Preston

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Two more for HRM

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I know — it’s complicated

 

We don’t get many “scoops” at Turpin Labs. In fact, some of our detractors insist we’ve never had a single one, apparently forgetting the time we sent an unpaid intern into the future to see how weed laws will affect Haligonians.

And so I was asleep at the switch Tuesday evening during a consultation held at Acadia Hall in Lower Sackville by the Electoral Boundaries Commission. (Note to peninsular Haligonians: Sackville, aka Bagtown, is a thriving settlement that, remarkably, is part of neither Bedford nor Dartmouth and YOU CAN GET THERE BY BUS!)

I attended because I knew the committee was required by law to disclose its draft boundaries in advance of its first consultation, if only by five minutes.  There were no apparent news-hacks in the room (two of the six attendees were MLAs of some kind), but I assumed some hack somewhere would telephone commission chair Colin Dodds later to “catch up on the story”.

But as of 10:00 p.m. Wednesday there was nothing, so Turpin Labs is THE FIRST TO TELL YOU the commission’s draft proposal is to restore four new seats to the Legislative Assembly.

Three “Acadian” seats would be resurrected: Clare, Argyle and Richmond. All were vaporized by the NDP in 2012. Preston, too, would return. These changes are in response to complaints from Acadians and African Nova Scotians.

HRM could get two more seats, but your correspondent dropped the ball on the explanation, figuring the so-called mainstream media would have filled in the blanks by Wednesday morning. Moreover, my days of calling sources late at night are long gone. My bad.

Unbelievers, I can feel you out there. So you can find the commission’s handout here.

And that, lamestream media, is how Turpin Labs handles a “scoop”. Failing New York Times: I write this more in sorrow than in glee.

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Not so good for the civil service

Recently I ordered a single-shot espresso at a well-known coffee shop. It was handed to me in a medium paper cup, where it looked like tobacco juice on the bottom of a large white spittoon. Puzzled, I looked at the server who–as if to demonstrate what an alienated employee looks like– merely shrugged.

Geez, I thought, what if the NS civil service was like that? Does government measure that sort of thing, I asked?

It turns out the Public Service Commission does it with a survey called “How’s Work Going?” and the results are discouraging.

“Employee engagement” has dropped 21 per cent since 2007, 23 per cent since 2009. It’s something the provincial government defines as “the extent to which individuals feel connected to and involved with their jobs and their organization.”

Here at Turpin Labs, engagement means you get your espresso in a ceramic cup so it can be properly savoured.

Every two years the PSC sends a survey about the workplace to each of its 10,000 employees. It then weights the answers to come up with an employee engagement “index”. An index of 60 denotes an engaged workforce; anything below, not so much. In 2017, the index hit 57.

Brian Taylor, a media relations advisor for the PSC, wrote the following in response to my query about this:

“… In 2011, the areas of engagement identified as needing the most improvement were Leadership Practices, Clear Expectations and Directions, and Recognition. 

“Downward trending employee engagement is a phenomenon that is being observed across the country in both the public and private sector. The Nova Scotia Public Service is actively looking deeper into what employees need to feel satisfied and engaged. We have increased our focus on engaging the ‘whole’ person by looking at solutions that take into account work life balance, enhancing communication and relationships, provide support beyond the workplace and ensure employees have the right training and development to build leadership.”

I like the PSC because it walks the talk on employee training, but it has to be said there’s nothing new in that last sentence. And, in 2017, employee engagement in Canada experienced an uptick.

As noted in the chart caption, you cannot attribute changes in the index to specific events, such as elections or vampire attacks. But the trend is undeniable: the index has steadily declined since it peaked at 74 under Rodney MacDonald’s Conservative government. We know there is a problem, but we don’t know why.

So, Turpin Labs’ award-winning Analytical Division decided to search for similar trends among the answers to particular questions in the survey. The result is below.

The units of measurement for the questions over the past 10 years can be vague, but the trends are not. The chart shows the trends for the overall engagement index and the response to “I am proud to tell people I work for the Government of Nova Scotia” track closely. The same can be said for “Overall, I feel valued as a Government of Nova Scotia employee”, and it’s not much of a stretch to say that question drags down the overall index.

I am not coddling civil servants here. Everybody wants to feel they are valued by their employer.

“Hmm,” you say. “That’s all well and good, Bill. But has Turpin Labs taken the trouble to compare responses from various departments?”

Yes, it has. Below is a gorgeous, two-coloured chart showing the results.

(Beauty, eh?)

It’s noteworthy that Nova Scotia Environment has dropped from a government-leading 72 in 2007 to the bottom of the heap, at 43, in 2017. Assigning a new minister to the department in January 2017 may have been intended to help. If so, the question was rendered moot last Thursday when the previous minister was returned to the post.

The Department of Justice, recently criticized for dismal conditions at the Burnside jail, has dropped to 50 from 72 since 2007.

Your correspondent worked for seven years in Nova Scotia’s civil service, mostly in the environment department, before capturing the CEO position at Turpin Labs. I learned the civil service is pretty much like any large workplace–it has the usual mix of slugs, high-performers and people who need to be motivated. If I had to characterize civil servants, I would say they work hard and believe strongly in the public good. Frustration, not laziness, is the main enemy of high performance.

My biggest shock, however, was seeing the importance of a good minister. A good deputy minister is also essential, but the secret sauce for an effective department is a minister who knows how to lead. Who knew?

More on this in future posts.

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B.C. schools use their words — badly

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/poster-in-bc-schools-about-white-privilege-hits-nerve-with-some-parents/article38257830/

You would think people striving to be politically correct would be more careful with their words. Not in the Gold Trail district of B.C.

There, school-kids are subjected to a poster featuring the phrase “white privilege.”

The term appears to be acceptable in the academic world, where it has several subtle definitions, such as this from Wikipedia: “White privilege has been defined by David Wellman as a system of advantage based on race. It has been compared by Peggy McIntosh to an invisible, weightless knapsack of assets and resources that she was given because she was born White in her time and place in U.S. society … ”

But outside the ivory tower it’s like an experimental virus that’s escaped the laboratory. Some people are immune to it, but for others it causes severe inflammation, i.e., “all I’ve done is work hard at my job but it turns out I owe my success to white privilege, whatever the #$@%! that is!”

Worse, the poster features the schools superintendent wearing hang-dog expression — as if she’s just returned from re-education camp — and declaring she has “unfairly benefitted” from white privilege.

So there it is. It’s not enough to acknowledge we suffer from prejudice in Canada (duh), but we also have to blame whites for it. This is exactly the opposite of how you bring harmony to people with visible differences. (And invisible differences, too, such as language.) But it’s  good news for white supremacists, who can point to the poster and other white privilege rhetoric and say: “See, we told you they were out to get us.” Then they can just sit back and watch attitudes harden all around.

Black Lives Matter, by contrast, is a positive phrase. Its message is indisputable, and invites urgent change. But it doesn’t subtly incite retribution against the police.

Réne Lévesque, the late Quebec separatist leader and a great Canadian, understood the danger of inflammatory rhetoric. He avoided turning “the English” into the official enemy of Francophone Quebec, which would have been a winning but bloody tactic.

It’s also worth noting that as of 2016 about 73 per cent of Canadians identified as white (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Canada#Visible_minority_population) . In 1996 the number was 86 per cent. The intervening 20 years is roughly the time it takes to ascend to a position such as superintendent of schools. So, it’s fair to ask how many people owe their success to “overwhelming white numbers” rather than white privilege.

And you have to wonder about the effect of the poster on students, who have been rightly taught the importance of equality and fellowship from the get-go. Are white students to disregard their achievements because they’ve benefitted from “white privilege”? Are nonwhites to stop trying as hard because they now know — from authorities — that the deck is stacked against them? Should they ostracize their white classmates? Should all the kids be issued colour swatches to help determine their skin colour and therefore whether or not they are the enemy?

And none of this is news. White privilege is just a fancy way of saying something thoughtful Canadians already know and want to eradicate.

I like the old messaging better: we’re the same, we’re all in this together, let’s help each other out.

It takes time to sink in and I wish it didn’t, but it’s the better alternative.

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