Williams Apology According to Jones

The post below in it's entirety belongs to Brian Jones - Desk editor - The Telegram.
Editorial 11/01/2008

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The danger that can result when powerful people surround themselves with sycophants was on clear and horrible display this week when Premier Danny Williams testified at the Cameron inquiry.

Williams’ apology Tuesday won quick accolades and earned him a headline spot on that night’s CBC-TV broadcast of “The National.” Several cancer victims and advocates expressed appreciation for the premier’s apology and his sincerity in doing so. To Williams’ credit, it was the decent thing to do, and it is indeed a rarity in Canadian politics — you don’t often see provincial premiers issue blanket apologies about anything.

But the details are a problem. I keep trying to visualize Williams in the premier’s office, bouncing his planned apology off underlings.

With a caucus that consists of only one spine among 43, and a bevy of “I can’t remember” staffers and “I don’t recall” assistants, it isn’t likely that anyone within earshot of the boss would have piped up with, “Uh, Mr. Premier, are you sure you want to say it that way?”In Wednesday’s Telegram, under the headline “Premier apologizes,” the first full quote attributed to Williams sounds striking, but upon a second, closer reading hits you between the eyes like a Phillies’ baseball bat because of its astounding implications: “Patients who are involved in this process are the pioneers and martyrs who are paving the way for a better health-care system at the end of the day.

”Unfortunate phrasing"

Picture a tentative, somewhat reluctant hand being raised. “Uh, boss, do you think maybe you should rephrase that?

”There are no pioneers or martyrs here. There are only victims. That statement is so insulting and offensive that it almost negates the legitimacy of the premier’s apology. A pioneer is someone who willingly sets out to be among the first to do something or go somewhere. Albert Einstein was a pioneer. The Beatles were pioneers. The voyageurs were pioneers. People who get cancer are not pioneers.

A martyr is someone who willingly risks his or her life — or, at least, gives up his or her comfortable life — in pursuit of a task or an ideal. St. Boniface was a martyr. St. Sebastien was a martyr. You could even say that Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy were martyrs. But people who die of cancer are not martyrs.

They were victims, period — first of medical mistakes, and then of a bureaucratic cover up. It is ludicrous to suggest, as Williams did, that the people who were victimized by the hormone receptor testing scandal were “paving the way for a better health-care system. ”This is insensitive spin at its worst. I’ll hold off, and leave it to others to ask that the premier apologize.

Easy answers

Many observers were probably wondering, as I was, what happened to inquiry lawyer Bern Coffey, who up until this week has been determined and tenacious in his questioning of witnesses.

The day Williams was on the stand, Coffey apparently decided to stay home and send his nicer, gentler twin brother — also named Bern — to fill in for him. On a day when the public most needed Coffey’s estimable skills as an interrogator, he instead chose to let the premier use the inquiry as a podium.

Lest we let dramatic apologies make us lose sight of the issue, there are two main occurrences that the inquiry, and the public, must confront. First, there were errors in the lab. Second, those errors were later hidden from patients.

People can probably forgive the mistakes. Forgiveness for the ensuing cover up won’t likely be as forthcoming. This scandal arose because people made decisions and took certain actions — or, if you prefer, took no action. It did not arise due to “pioneers” or “martyrs. ”Statements of banal contrition will not suffice. After all, as Williams said, “We’re talking lives here.

”Brian Jones is a desk editor at The Telegram. He can be reached by e-mail at
bjones@thetelegram.com.