$50K staff parties under Theresa Tam: Public Health's recent catering bills revealed

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The Public Health Agency of Canada put their own partying ahead of pandemic preparedness in the months leading up to the scourge of the coronavirus spreading to Canada.

The Public Health Agency of Canada exists to prepare and prevent the spread of deadly viruses.

The agency, headed by Theresa Tam, was created in the wake of the SARS pandemic to ensure Canada is never again caught flat footed when disease disaster strikes.

They didn’t do their jobs this time.

The PHAC even let Trudeau send the nation’s already depleted medical protective equipment stockpile to China after Canada had it’s first diagnosed case of the #coronavirus.

Instead, they were throwing themselves expensive “Take Your Kids to Work Day”' parties and charging it to the taxpayer.

The details are in this scathing article from Blacklock's Reporter:

The Public Health Agency of Canada in weeks leading to the Covid-19 outbreak spent more than $50,000 on catered staff luncheons, party snacks and refreshments for Take Our Kids To Work Day, records show. MPs cited the Agency for failing in its duty to stock up on vital pandemic supplies for doctors and nurses.

“I think hindsight, to be honest, is 20-20,” Dr. Howard Njoo, deputy chief public health officer, earlier told reporters. “I think in the day, no one could have predicted how this was going to unfold.”

The Agency in an Inquiry Of Ministry tabled in the Commons said it billed taxpayers $50,748 for meals and snacks in the period from last October 1 to this past February 18. Expenses were billed as “refreshments”, “working breakfasts”, “working lunches” and “working meals” for managers at the Agency’s Ottawa headquarters and National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg.

Billings with a single Winnipeg caterer The Chatty Eatery totaled $3,314. Expenses in the week before Christmas were $6,935 billed as “meetings” and an observance of Take Our Kids To Work Day last December 20. Agency expenses on snacks and refreshments for the entire fiscal year were not disclosed.

The Agency has acknowledged it failed to stock up on medical supplies like hospital-grade N95 masks that sold for $1.25 at the time. Managers have refused to disclose pre-pandemic supplies held in a national emergency strategic stockpile, though the Globe & Mail on May 1 obtained documents indicating only 100,000 N95 masks were stored before the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic.

“I can’t give you the precise numbers,” Dr. Theresa Tam, chief public health officer, told reporters May 1. “What I know is it changes all the time as things come in and out.”

If Theresa Tam can't give us the precise numbers of masks, we need to get somebody in the job who can, someone who parties less and prepares more.

To sign our petition calling on Theresa Tam to be fired for her long list of failures, please go to FireTam.com.

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