Crisis Communications – Dr. Terry Flynn, APR, FCPRS

Will We See Another Walkerton Water Crisis in Ontario?

The Doug Ford conservative government unveiled new legislation last week that could risk the safety and security of Ontario’s drinking water supplies — changes that would roll back the safeguards that were put in place after the 2000 Walkerton Water Crisis.

According to an article written by Jennifer Pagliaro in yesterday’s Toronto Star,

“Nearly 19 years later, environmental advocates say Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government is posing one of the greatest risks both the environment and public health have faced in decades. Last week, the government tabled a new piece of legislation, Bill 66, that, if passed, would allow commercial development to bypass several long-standing laws meant to protect the natural environment and the health of residents, including the Clean Water Act that was put in place following the Walkerton tragedy.”

The Walkerton water crisis is personal for me — on May 23, 2000, as the president of Frontline Corporate Communications, I was retained to assist the town of Walkerton with crisis communications support. I was there when helicopters would leave the local hospital and transport a very sick patient to University Hospital in London, Ontario — where seven eventually died. Studies after the crisis concluded that half the town’s population of 5,000 were sickened by the e-coli contamination of the local water supply.

Two years after the crisis, Ontario Justice Dennis O’Connor issued a damning report that placed much of the blame on the then Mike Harris conservative government and concluded that the e-coli outbreak could have been prevented.

On that January afternoon in 2002, according to a CBC report, Harris bravely appeared in Walkerton to accept full responsibility:

“A few hours after Justice O’Connor released his report, Ontario Premier Mike Harris arrived in Walkerton to express his “deep regrets.” Harris made a point of sipping on a glass of water while he answered media questions.

“I, as premier, must ultimately accept responsibility for any shortcomings of the government of Ontario,” he told a nationally televised news conference.

“I would also like to say to the people of Walkerton on behalf of the provincial government and the people of Ontario that I am truly sorry for the pain and suffering that you have experienced.”

Seven deaths were attributed to the E. coli outbreak. He said he regrets anything his government may have done that might have contributed to the contamination in the town’s water supply.

It seems like déja vu all over again, as Yogi Berra once said — a conservative government removing safeguards to protect our health and the environment. We know how this movie ended in 2000 — let’s not let the Ford government create another Walkerton. And if it does, it will be the end of Doug Ford’s political career, just like it ended Mike Harris’s days as Premier.

Photo Sources:

https://www.gettyimages.ca/detail/news-photo/mayor-david-thomson-gets-last-minute-instructions-from-his-news-photo/165312761

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2012/04/04/walkom_harpers_airsafety_lapses_scarier_than_f35_cockup.html

The Crisis Leadership Approach (circa 2004)

I was rummaging through old file boxes this weekend and found a manuscript that I wrote in 2004 that I didn’t submit for publication — for reasons that now escape me. I’ve uploaded the unpublished manuscript to ResearchGate.

Here are my top 10 tips for organizations to develop and nuture a crisis leadership approach within their organizations (taken from this article).

Crisis Leadership Approach (circa 2004)

Your senior management team has the vision and the leadership to anticipate crises within and outside your organization.
Your team has identified the most-likely threats and challenges to your organization’s operations and you have written and tested effective response
Your organization has a multi-disciplinary crisis management team established and ready to
Your primary goal during a crisis is to attend to the immediate needs of the organization and your key stakeholders and resolving the crisis in the interests of your organization and the public.
Your public relations staff/consultants have the necessary resources to manage a .. today.
Your senior management team has delegated the authority to your crisis management team to make the critical organizational decisions during a
You have identified your key stakeholders (employees, neighbors, shareholders, suppliers, customers) and have the means to communicate with them during a
Your organization is committed to open, ethical and timely communication with the public during a
You are part of a learning organization and have already put in place a ” lessons learned” process for your next
You understand that effective crisis communication and management is a long-term commitment.

Interesting that I didn’t mention the words digital or social media as platforms such as FaceBook and Twitter either hadn’t been made public or invented in 2004.

I’m back…did you miss me?

It’s been far too long since I last attempted to post my thoughts about public relations and professional communications. As most writers and researchers know and understand, it takes a concentrated effort to battle the simple distractions in life that provide the simplest excuses not to write. My me it has been a combination of reasons but the most important has been a lack of confidence that my voice or my thoughts matter.

Writing is not my natural communications skill — those who know me (and my family) know that having kissed the Blarney stone at such a young age, I was blessed with the proverbial Irish gift of speech. Give me a microphone, a stage or a classroom and I could speak for days. But put a blank sheet of paper or computer screen in front of me and the gift of speech fails to translate into the gift of the written word. So trying to capture my thoughts in manner that I believe can make a positive contribution to our already overloaded information world has been a struggle. Others have and continue to write about issues that are impacting public relations and professional communications — with great ease and great impact. Some researchers churn out study after study on micro and macro issues, sometimes leaving me to think that it’s already been said and studied.

However, as we well know, it hasn’t all been said and certainly in this discipline and professional field of study and practice, there is still much to know and understand. So my goal in 2015 is to make an efficient (an hopefully effective) contribution to the fields of public relations, crisis communications, reputation management and behavioural communication.

I will endeavour to bring you timely professional and scholarly information and insights but not overload you with details about my dogs, my favourite meals or my attempts to go back to the gym and get physically and mentally fit. While my social media knowledge is fairly good, I must confess that I’m still trying to learn the protocols of an effective blogger. So be patient with my lack of sophistication. There are some bloggers that have been writing for decades and have incorporated the latest platforms and apps — I admire their efforts greatly and hope that over time (and use of these platforms) that I may reach a greater level of expertise. But until then, this blog will a work in progress.

I hope that my thoughts and perspectives provoke you to think, ponder and comment on the issues that I believe are important to both the scholarship and practice of these disciplines.