By Michael Nickerson
Think back to kindergarten. Remember that big piece of wood with various circles, squares, triangles and the like cut out of it? They would give you little bits of wood, point at the board, and say have at it. Now in case you didn’t know at the time, this was a test. For instance, if you sucked on the wood or tried to stuff the pieces in your shorts, then you were likely earmarked for remedial kindergarten. Put the square peg in a round hole and you might have to repeat kindergarten. Put a square peg in a square hole? You’re off to grade one! Devise a way to make the pegs levitate using only your wits and a digestible cookie, and you’ll be at MIT before your baby teeth have fallen out.
Needless to say you don’t put square pegs in round holes. As the old saying goes, there’s a peg for every hole and home for every peg (or so my teacher always said). Good advice that, but it seems one huge viral outbreak has people everywhere creating a lot of homeless pegs.
Which brings us to Rick Hillier. For simplicity sake, let’s make him a square peg. Back when the retired general was doing general-like things, we might say he was all snug as a bug in his square hole, with the occasional squeak and creak depending on how well he actually did the job. But he was trained for it, ready for it, and had a whole army of square pegs firmly in their proper holes. My playschool teacher could not have been prouder.
Now in case you haven’t heard, the premier of Ontario seems to have run out of competent round pegs. But being a politician looking for a quick fix to a problem long in the making, he decided to use Gen. (ret.) Hillier to fill the spherical gap. And let it be said that on the federal level, Justin Trudeau has taken up the idea with gusto, hammering Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin into a role in which he really does not belong.
Why you ask? For let’s be honest, these are men schooled in and experienced with problems of logistics, leadership, organization, and calmness under pressure. And I will readily admit they are some of the finest square pegs you’re going to find. The sort of pegs you’d want to bring home to meet your mother.
The problem arises when you take generals used to people following orders as a god would his disciples and ask them to take charge of a huge bureaucracy of civil servants and health workers who consider orders suggestions, many of whom have a union to fall back on if they don’t like what’s being asked of them, or if they don’t are underpaid and really couldn’t give a damn, and in many respects are just plain exhausted and fed-up. Go team!
So far the results have been rather predictable. Vaccine distribution has been spotty at best. The country that secured the most vaccines per capita is well behind other nations, notably the US and Israel, in actually getting people vaccinated. Bottlenecks, shortages, wasted inventory and no end of cockups on the ground has made this a deadly situation just when Canadians need their government most.
And to be clear, this is not solely, or in any great measure, the fault of either Hillier or Fortin. They came late to the game, leading departments not savvy to the ways of military command, trying to get to grips with something federal and provincial governments knew would be coming months and months ago. Last spring, people were ‘blindsided’ by deaths in our long-term care homes, and called in the military to clean up the mess. Eight months later, seniors are once again dying; there are staff shortages, and calls for military help. We knew this winter wave was coming, knew that at some point vaccines would be available, yet once again it’s up to the military to clean things up.
I can only assume our elected officials never passed kindergarten. Because anyone who did would tell you that you can only pound pegs into the wrong holes for so long before something cracks.
