If I do any news media on Public Health Ontario, be aware that the Premier's Office will try to spin personal smears about my health.

I wouldn't even put it past Dr. Donnelly.

Just so you know to expect that.

I am an open book. I will not be shamed and marginalized.

I am proud of my decision to be public about drug addiction, and being HIV Positive.

Every chief of science at PHO endorsed me to be renewed. My work performance and results were high.

The Chiefs trusted my judgement.

I was also endorsed by the Chief Medical Officer of Health.

Given that, and the results (I managed Ontario's media response for Ebola and the NA Measles Crisis) there was no defensible reason for not renewing me, and replacing me w/ Minister Hoskins' leadership campaign organizer.

I was pushed out bc I refused orders from Min.Hoskins.

I even *volunteered* to my management that I was suffering burnout after Ebola and Measles and needed help for mental illness.

I didn't have to. I wanted to tell them.

None of the Chiefs - all doctors - could tell. Work was my respite, where I was sober, happy and conscious.i

It was incumbent upon Public Health Ontario to renew me, and get me medical help.

That was their obligation after I served with distinction.

President Donnelly instead chose to hire Hoskins' political agent. I had a job lined up at Toronto Public Health so I wasn't too worried.

Except I decided to whistle-blow.

Dr. Donnelly threatened me twice on my last day - thru my manager and the current head of "PHO Knowledge Exchange".

The message from Donnelly was if I whistle-blow on him and tell PHO Chiefs or anyone else, "doors will close".

It was a clear threat about the job I was supposed to take at Toronto Public Health.

The Chiefs didn't know what Donnelly had done with improper hiring. He actually thought if I didn't tell them, they wouldn't find out. He was probably right.

I defied him.

I told as many PHO officials as I could before I left to make sure the Chiefs knew.

Doctor Ray Copes was shocked Donnelly didn't renew me, and was desperately trying to talk to me before I left.

(He would have suspected something wasn't on the up and up and wanted to know)

Sure enough Donnelly and my manager put up blocks to try to prevent Dr. Copes and I from talking. It was comical.

I knew they were monitoring my email which is standard practice for an employee who is departing, but esp for someone in my sensitive position w/ news media.

So I told them to start using my Gmail. But it was too late. They were tipped off each time a Chief tried to talk to me, so they ran interference to make it difficult.

The chiefs who I needed to inform were suddenly called away.

That's how insanely paranoid Donnelly was.

It was surreal.

I was naive and assumed he wouldn't follow thru after I whistle-blowed (I told Crowcroft thru her EA - she visibily demonstrated support by coming to my office goodbye, other chiefs were called away).

Well he did. I was shocked. This job was a sure thing.

Dr. Donnelly somehow managed get Toronto Public Health to cancel the position entirely!

I had interviewed twice. Once again I had the strong endorsement of the entire provincial public health leadership, even including the Chief Medical Officer of Health of Ontario.

Because the CMOH was happy with my proactive media strategy on flu that year. And I was in constant contact with Andrew Bell, lead CMOH Comms during Ebola and other crises.

After I was pushed out, Andrew said the CMOH wanted me to know he was appalled with Donnelly's conduct.

FYI: I refused requests from Minister Hoskins' office to do his PR.

Before I was pushed out, I refused a desperate order from his office to deceive Kelly Grant from the Globe and Mail about a science fact related to measles after the minister stated an incorrect fact to a scrum

I was ordered to not confirm the correct science, because that would confirm Minister Hoskins, a doctor, told a false disease fact.

I refused. My position was if a reporter asks PHO a science question, they get a science answer from our experts thru me as their liaison. Period.

My position was I don't serve politicians.

I serve the people of Ontario by treating news reporters as my clients or my boss. That depends on them trusting PHO's experts via me.

Public Health's integrity rests on science and truth unfiltered from politics.

Hoskins and his staff wouldn't back down. They escalated to Doctor Donnelly (this is BEFORE his reorg).

They were panicking this would damage the minister. It was well known at Queen's Park that Hoskins was gunning for the OLP leadership as Wynne's support started to wobble.

During a conference call with Minister Hoskins' office with Donnelly, my manager and myself present, his staffer said and I quote:

"Your job is to help the minister look good!"

Donnelly sided with me, and told the staffer "no that's not what Public Health does".

I felt good!

Yet weeks later, I endure a competition.

(I was contract replacing a matt leave but bc of my performance and Ebola experience, the worst crises since SARS, the Chiefs wanted me for pandemic. To expand the media role beyond one person so I would stay when the matt leave returns)

Plus I had just spent a year training and mobilizing a team of spokespeople working closely with the Chiefs to be media trained and ready for SARS2 or Pandemic. Because they believed it was imminent.

No one else in the public health comms world outside SARS had my experience.

So it was baffling when Donnelly hired Eric Hoskins' leadership campaign organizer. Pushing me out after serving PHO guiding it thru news media storms sparked by multiple major public health crises.

Hundreds of news media interviews. Not one mistake or walk-back.

Experienced. Pandemic ready. Replaced by someone who's only mission was a politician.

The reason it matters to the story of Public Health Ontario, limping rather than leading us to safety:

It was part of an deliberate organized effort to bring PHO under political control.

That's what Dr. Donnelly's reorg was about.

Power.

During Ebola, Hoskins refused PHO's advice on PPE.

PHO threatened to go public. Instead they sent him a letter, and refused to speak in support of the minister's Ebola strategy hoping the media would notice (they didn't).

Dr. Donnelly was an unknown hired from Scotland by PHO's board *during Ebola* when PHO was struggling with Minister Hoskins.

He had no Canadian or Ontario health system experience whatsoever. This meant he wouldn't be wedded to the instinctive assumptions of PHO's Chiefs.

Because the board's hiring decision made no sense (infectious disease is not Donnelly's specialty, violence is) we strongly suspected it was a power play by Hoskins. That he must have interfered with board.