Alberta Premier Danielle Smith defends choice of ‘contrarian’ chair to lead COVID-19 data review
Global News
The premier says Dr. Gary Davidson was selected to lead the data review because she wants to hear a range of viewpoints, including from those "shouted down in the public sphere."
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says it’s a good idea to have a physician who accused the province of exaggerating COVID-19‘s impact on hospitals now lead a review of pandemic-era health data.
Smith says Dr. Gary Davidson was selected to lead the data review because she wants to hear a range of viewpoints, including from those “shouted down in the public sphere.”
“I needed somebody who was going to look at everything that happened with some fresh eyes and maybe with a little bit of a contrarian perspective because we’ve only ever been given one perspective,” Smith told reporters at the legislature Tuesday.
“I left it to (Davidson) to assemble the panel with the guidance that I would like to have a broad range of perspectives.”
The work of the task force is nearly complete but few details have been publicized since it was struck in 2022.
The Globe and Mail reported Tuesday that Davidson, the former chief of emergency medicine at the Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre, was appointed chair of the task force a year ago.
During the height of the fourth wave of the pandemic in 2021, Davidson claimed hospital admission numbers were overblown and being manipulated to justify public health restrictions.
The provincial health authority, Alberta Health Services, rejected those accusations as false.
