(LifeSiteNews) –– The Auditor General for the Canadian province of New Brunswick has released a critical report highlighting that provincial health officials could not give any evidence-based documentation to support 33 COVID-related decisions it made during the so-called pandemic.
New Brunswick’s Auditor General Paul Martin, in his recently released 2023 Auditor General’s Report – Volume II, under the heading “COVID-19 Pandemic Response,” noted that despite the public health department having multiple COVID systems in place, he found “areas for improvement.”
Martin’s office selected 33 public-related recommendations from the province’s Office of the Chief Medical Officer of Health, and then asked the department to back up these recommendations with evidence.
“The department was unable to provide requested documentation, acknowledging that they ‘did not create a compendium or a repository of all of the scientific articles, papers, publications and analyses it consulted during the pandemic and therefore we cannot provide a fulsome and detailed list of all of the evidence consulted and used when recommendations were being formulated,'” noted Martin while speaking to the legislature’s public accounts committee.
Although the department was able to support some of its infection protocol decisions, Martin noted that these were internal, and not “public-facing.”
The department was able to provide evidence to support 31 of 35 infection prevention and control policy decisions, which Martin described as being related to internal operations, rather than “public-facing.”
“These records should be retained. People want to know — you, the public, they want to know that [they were] being heard in their [the Office of the Chief Medical Officer of Health’s] decisions that were being referred to government. They want to know there was no political interference,” said Martin.
“I have no evidence that there was, or wasn’t.”
Province’s chief medical officer’s emails show she was looking to back up COVID decisions
When it came to the 33 decisions that lacked evidence to support them, Martin’s office did not give details as to what they were, or why they were the focus of his audit.
The province’s former chief medical officer of health, Dr. Jennifer Russell, according to some of her emails that were made public, revealed she was looking for evidence to back up the health decisions made by her department, according to Liberal health critic Rob McKee, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reported.
McKee asked Martin if he viewed the emails, to see if some of the COVID decisions were indeed made without evidence.
“We’re looking for evidence that supports the decisions made and when there’s no evidence, all we can do is state the fact to you,” said Martin.
Martin, as per his Volume I COVID response report from September, noted how the province’s hotel isolation program cost some $5.4 million despite only nine people testing positive for COVID. He also found issues relating to the government’s decision-making, communications, as well as preparedness levels.
He also noted how students in the province lost 17 weeks of learning due to schools being closed as the result of a COVID mandate. He noted how virtual learning was ineffective and that there were gaps in the process.
The province’s health department has now pledged to keep “enhanced record keeping.”
All provinces in Canada enacted extreme COVID lockdowns and put in place vaccine passports. Many who did not comply lost their jobs as a result or were fined. Many affected by COVID mandates are fighting back.
While most provincial governments have failed to admit any responsibility in mishandling the COVID crisis, some governments such as Alberta’s have gone as far as to fire health officials who were in charge at the time.
Last month, LifeSiteNews reported on how Alberta’s United Conservative Party (UCP) government under Premier Danielle Smith is looking to pass a new law that would hold politicians accountable in times of a health crisis by putting sole decision-making on them for health matters instead of unelected medical officers.
At the end of July, Justice Barbara Romaine from Alberta’s Court of Kings Bench ruled that politicians violated the province’s health act by making decisions regarding COVID mandates without authorization.
Smith after becoming premier fired the province’s top doctor, Deena Hinshaw, and the entire Alberta Health Services (AHS) board of directors, all of whom oversaw the COVID mandates.
Over 700 vaccine-free Canadians negatively affected by federal COVID jab dictates have banded together to file a multimillion-dollar class-action lawsuit against the federal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
In October 2021, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced unprecedented COVID-19 jab mandates for all federal workers and those in the transportation sector and said the unjabbed will no longer be able to travel by air, boat, or train, both domestically and internationally.
This policy resulted in thousands losing their jobs or being placed on leave for non-compliance.
Trudeau “suspended” the COVID travel vaccine mandates on June 20, 2022. Last October, the Canadian federal government ended all remaining COVID mandates in Canada regarding travel, including masking on planes and trains, COVID testing, and allowing vaccine-free Canadians to no longer be subject to mandatory quarantine.