He knows he’s hit a nerve.
Hastings-Lennox and Addington’s Conservative Member of Parliament Derek Sloan posted Facebook and Twitter commentary earlier this week demanding the dismissal of Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam.
He expected criticism of his comments but tells Quinte News that the number of people calling him a racist caught him off guard.
“My comments were about serious mistakes made by Dr. Tam early on in the COVID-19 crisis and had absolutely nothing to do with race, ethnicity, or gender. There were red flags in late December coming from Wuhan, China about the seriousness of the virus and both Dr. Tam and the World Health Organization ignored those and just repeated whatever Communist Party officials in China were telling them. While they were doing that, people were being arrested in China for speaking the truth about the situation and the government was involved in a cover-up. Taiwan didn’t ignore the early information on the the reality in China and they took tough measures right away. The result was barely any infections or death.”
Sloan says in Canada Dr. Tam simply missed the early warnings, and was still telling people the virus couldn’t be passed from human to human until the middle of January.
“People at the top of government or other organizations have to be held accountable for their mistakes, especially serious ones. To use a hockey analogy, if a player scores on his own goal he gets benched. Too many very bad mistakes have been made and we need someone in that important position doing the job properly.”
Sloan is not impressed with the mainstream national media. “They are poised to turn any legitimate comment into a charge of racism. They are just interested in creating “clickbait”. I’m not bowing to the politically correct crowd. It’s my job to speak the truth and that’s my responsibility to my constituents.”
Asked whether he was concerned with Hastings County Council’s decision to formally ask that Sloan be disciplined, even up to the point of removing him from caucus, Sloan said he considered that request a non-issue. “With the exception of my asking that Dr. Tam be fired, I’ve said nothing on the crisis that my party already hasn’t publicly stated.”
