British Columbia has picked up Premier Danielle Smith’s scraps by hiring Alberta’s former chief medical officer Deena Hinshaw to be the junior partner to BC’s Bonnie Henry.
Hinshaw, given the boot by Smith shortly after she came into power, will be a deputy provincial health officer on a six-month contract.
In November 2022, Smith gave Hinshaw the boot for making several bad decisions while heading Alberta’s pandemic response.
Hinshaw was replaced by current Chief Medical Health Officer Mark Joffe.
“A lot of the bad decisions were made by Alberta Health Services on the basis of bad advice from the chief medical officer of health,” said Smith prior to firing her.
“I appreciate the work that Dr. Deena Hinshaw has done, but I think that we’re in a new phase where we are now talking about treating coronavirus like influenza.”
Subsequently, Premier Smith fired the entire Alberta Health Services (AHS) board.
Under Hinshaw’s watch, Alberta preachers were persecuted for continuing to allow churchgoers to worship during lockdowns.
Many of these charges have since been dropped.
According to Henry, Hinshaw’s temporary position is to help strengthen the province’s continued public health emergency response.
“To help strengthen B.C.’s preparedness and response to present and future public health emergencies, I am pleased to share new additions to our public health leadership team at the Office of the PHO,” stated Henri.
While still working for Alberta, Hinshaw received a controversial $228,000 bonus in 2021. Minister of Finance Travis Toews said he never approved it.
Public outrage over the hefty payment led to the Alberta government changing the rules on how it approves bonuses for public servants.
