When Ian Arra's earnings were made public there was rightfully a lot of questions and concerns voiced. There is absolutely no explanation as to why that much overtime was paid, and why there was such a discrepancy between his earnings and his counterparts throughout the province, particularly given the size of the population the Grey Bruce Health Unit serves. To date, no legitimate explanation has been provided regarding this.

Stating Dr Arra worked very hard and 24/7 this year is not an explanation. As Mr Tamming pointed out, this should not be looked at as a positive, and perhaps Dr Arra's ability to lead, delegate and manage his time should be addressed. Additionally, there are many people who have put in countless extra hours to support this pandemic, or make continuous alterations to the way they conduct their business in order to keep them afloat, none of which was compensated - let alone by hundreds of thousands of dollars. The validation that his time is worth that much is a slap in the face to all those people.

Mr Tamming asked a lot of question and made some unflattering statements about things that were going on at our health unit. If all the statements Mr Tamming made were investigated and found to be false, then I would agree that the letter was somewhat inappropriate. But the fact of the matter is, that is not the case.

Has the board arranged an external audit to find out what is actually going on at our local health unit? What has the board done to investigate the mass exodus of management this past year? This is an actual question that the public needs an answer to.

Choosing to turn a blind eye to reports of harassment, bullying, and an overall toxic environment is not acceptable. Stating that now, during this pandemic is not the time to talk about these things, as the focus needs to be on pandemic response - again does not make sense. This would be for the singular protection of Dr Arra, and comes at the expense to all the other workers at the health unit.

Besides the ethical implications of allowing this to go unchecked, are we also not concerned that if more members of management continue to leave their positions that the health unit may cave in and actually not be able to perform the functions required for this pandemic?

Although it is sometimes presented that Dr Arra is solely leading the way for all activities at the health unit, I think it is safe to state that this is simply not true (and should not be true), and many functions are completed by the dedicated, knowledgeable and highly capable workers and managers at the health unit.

Finally, the accusation that growing case numbers in the region are related to Mr Tamming's letter is absurd on many levels.

This is simply put, an embarrassingly ridiculous statement to make. You do not get to take credit for the time that Grey Bruce was spared and did well throughout the pandemic, and then in turn as soon as a problem arises, point your finger and say 'he did it'.

Especially when a shaming campaign was launched naming young people at bush parties for the sharp increase in cases. You can't have it both ways, becauseI 'm sorry, but I highly doubt those young people were tuning in to council meetings and pouring over local news to hear what Mr. Tamming was saying and questioning. It just makes no sense.

If anything is losing the public's trust in the health unit, it is their lack of transparency, the Board's inability to provide adequate oversight regarding compensation, and not actively taking steps to ensure the 'wild' accusations made by Mr Tamming are indeed not true.

Let's stop the childish 'it was his fault', and stop talking about taking flamethrowers to other people, and simply take some accountability.

Claire Michaels
Saugeen Shores