The director of communications for the Ontario Ministry of the Solicitor General has left her post after she made a donation to the trucking movement according to the QP Briefing site. The departure is welcomed by public policy experts, who however doubt the quality of the advice received by the minister responsible for police services in the province
The departure of Marion Isabeau-Ringuette, head of bilingual communications for the ministry, was confirmed Tuesday evening by the Premier’s office to two Ontario media. The former employee’s Linkedin account has since been deactivated. The identities of thousands of Freedom Convoy donors were revealed earlier this week due to a leak. The former communications director, who donated $100 to the cause, is one of nearly 36,000 Canadians who have donated to the cause, according to an analysis of the Duty.
According to Alok Mukherjee, former chairman of the Toronto Police Services Board, the presence of the ex-employee on the list sows doubts about the type of recommendations that Solicitor General Sylvia Jones receives from her senior team. “The public perception will be: if one employee sympathizes with the movement, there may be others within the department,” he continues.
Importance of Perception
Public perception counts for a lot within the ministries confirms Tony Dean, head of the Ontario public service between 2002 and 2008 and now an independent senator. “The fact that this person has been identified and has now left government sends the right message,” he said. The answer might have been different if the employee worked in the Ministry of Tourism or Education, he thinks. “But employees who work closely with law enforcement-related departments or ministers must hold themselves to higher standards than their colleagues in other departments,” he notes.
On February 6, Sylvia Jones insisted in a press release that “politicians do not [pouvaient] direct the work of the police” in the management of anti-sanitary measures protesters. But Alok Mukherjee argues that the ministry has an important role in the police response. “The Ontario Provincial Police reports to the Ministry of the Solicitor General of Ontario, the commissioner is appointed by the government and the latter is responsible for the rules that govern the work of the police,” describes Alok Mukherjee.
The Solicitor General has been the target of criticism in recent weeks because of her absence from the first two meetings of the tripartite roundtable on the management of the situation in Ottawa. In a press conference on January 11, Prime Minister Doug Ford said that the population did not want to see “politicians sitting around talking to each other, they want to see action”.
This story is supported by the Local Journalism Initiative, funded by the Government of Canada.