After retiring as Ontario's health minister and deputy premier, <a href="https://twitter.com/CharliePinkerto/status/1567531764389658624?s=20&amp;t=cbP-EtsvaEKsix7scntYNg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Christine Elliott</a> has joined the health law practice at Fasken, an international legal firm based in Canada.
Elliott was a Progressive Conservative MPP from 2006 to 2015, and again from 2018 to 2022. She was appointed by Liberal Health and Long-Term Care Minister Eric Hoskins as Ontario's first patient ombudsman in between her stints as an MPP.
She ran three times for PC leader. Doug Ford endorsed her for PC leader in 2015, when she lost to Patrick Brown. Elliott secured more total votes than Ford in 2018 but lost to the now-premier based on his slim points-margin victory. Ford appointed her health minister and deputy premier in 2018. She held those roles through Ford's first mandate, including for two years handling the province's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Elliott <a href="https://www.qpbriefing.com/2022/03/04/pcs-losing-deputy-leader-party-stalwart-christine-elliott-in-2022/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced on March 4</a> that she would not seek re-election for the PCs.
Read More: <a href="https://www.qpbriefing.com/2022/03/04/pcs-losing-deputy-leader-party-stalwart-christine-elliott-in-2022/">PCs losing deputy leader, party stalwart Christine Elliott in 2022</a>
She spoke to Queen's Park Briefing on Thursday about stepping away from her political career, Ontario's government, and her new job.
So, Christine, how have you enjoyed being out of public life?
Well, it's been very different because I've been involved in public life for so many years. It's become a way of life for me, but I am looking forward to working here at Fasken and using the knowledge and experience I gained as a health minister to help in their health law group and other group practices.
When was it clear to you that you weren't going to seek reelection, and then how did that snowball into what you're doing now?
I decided to leave earlier this year and I spoke with Premier Ford about it. At the time that I made that decision, I did not know what else I was going to do.
It was several months later that I had occasion to speak to Fasken. I had conversations with several people here and indicated to them that I was really interested in their firm. First of all, because it's an excellent Canadian law firm, and also because they have a large health law practice. Even though I was leaving public life, I'm still very interested in health law and I'll want to continue working in that area. So it seemed like a pretty natural fit.
What is the work that you're going to be doing?
In general terms, I'll be working with the group with their existing clients — health law clients — but also trying to find new clients that need assistance with health law, life sciences, new health technologies. I'll be working with the team to try and help the client experience and to help clients find a way to be successful in Ontario, either working with government on government programs or outside of government in health initiatives that will be useful for the people of Ontario and will help create better patient-centred-systems health care.
Can you share who those clients are, or is that confidential?
I'm not able to speak about particular clients.
With you now on the outside looking in, the government has already passed a bill to do with health care and they've unveiled a new health-care plan. Were you talked to about these at all, or are these all post-Christine Elliott decisions and changes?
I have not had any discussions with anyone about the government's health care plan. My term ended, and now with the new Minister of Health Sylvia Jones, she will make her decisions based on the knowledge that she has and I have great confidence in her.
I <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8936868/ford-consults-christine-elliott-new-cabinet/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">read that the premier contacted</a> you ahead of his cabinet changes. Did you have any input on Minister Jones succeeding you? And is there anything else you can share about advice you may have given?
I would say the decisions with respect to specific cabinet choices were really Premier Ford's. I am very happy that Minister Jones is health minister because we worked very closely together on the vaccine program when she was solicitor general and I was minister of health. I thoroughly enjoyed working with her.
Read More: <a href="https://www.qpbriefing.com/2022/06/24/ford-picks-sylvia-jones-as-deputy-premier-and-health-minister/">Ford picks Sylvia Jones as deputy premier and health minister</a>
What do you see as the biggest challenges for the government on the health front going forward — both in terms of COVID-19, and also generally speaking? 
I think it's always going to be important to keep reaching out to people to receive the COVID vaccine, because the greater number of people that are vaccinated, the less chance that COVID is going to recirculate, and of course, there's always a concern with colder weather coming that we will see an uptick in COVID.
I think the team in health has done a really good job in having moved from having the large vaccine clinics that everyone went to, to now going to communities in busses and other smaller clinics. I think that work is continuing, which is important.
In terms of the bigger picture challenges, I think that the government has been quite forthcoming that there are some challenges with health-care human resources in having enough people to run the hospitals — because we did open another over 3,000 beds during COVID. When you open a bed you need to have the people to provide care. So I think that increased need, plus a lot of health-care workers being ill with COVID themselves — and also needing some time off, too — means that we need to have more health resources available, which means we need to bring in people perhaps from other jurisdictions but also graduate people within Ontario.
Was there a moment in the last two years, or a phase during the pandemic, that you look at retrospectively as what you're most proud of?
I was really proud of all of the people that I worked with. When you're dealing with a pandemic, it's really important to act quickly. You need to understand exactly what it is that you're dealing with — so you need to gather the information quickly — and then you need to work together to find solutions, and then be able to implement those solutions.
It sounds easy to do, but it's not when you're dealing with different groups of people.
I was dealing with my caucus and cabinet colleagues. I was dealing with my own political office staff, and I was dealing with the public servants who worked in the Ministry of Health. They were all true professionals.
Are there any major decisions that you wish you had made differently during the pandemic?
I think nobody does everything perfectly. I'll be the first one to admit that. But overall, in terms of the action that was taken, there was nothing in a major sense in that I would have changed. I might have done it slightly differently, but I think that overall in Ontario we did the best that we could at the time. I guess it'll be up to others in the future to determine how well we did. That won't be up to me to determine.
Which things do you wish you could have done slightly differently?
Sometimes when things happen, you always want things to happen immediately. It doesn't always happen as quickly as you'd like within government. But we tried to take action as quickly as we were able to.
And what's most exciting to you about your new job?
I'm very pleased to be at an excellent quality law firm, but I'm also pleased to be working with great people in the health law teams and some of the other teams that I'm being introduced to. And I look forward to working in a collaborative fashion, much in the same way that we did at the Ministry of Health.
You've obviously already had a very long career. With Fasken, is this a one-year project, a two-year project, a 15-year venture — what's the plan?
Right now I'm looking forward to working with Fasken and I'm not sure what the length of time will be. As long as I can be useful, I hope that we'll be able to continue.
The government has a tall task in front of it with fixing the health-care system and trying to improve it. Do you have any words of wisdom for Minister Jones or for the premier's office?
I don't think I could tell either Premier Ford or Minister Jones anything that they don't already know.
We had embarked on a transformation of our health-care system before COVID came along. That happened with the creation of Ontario Health, which eliminated the local health integration networks, and having more local Ontario health teams across the province, which will bring more patient-centred care, direct care, and more connected care for patients across the province. That to me is really important and that.
In the past, those systems haven't always been connected, which meant that sometimes people feel that they're shut out of their health-care system at various periods of time.
I know the government is continuing with this work and I think it's going to make a very big difference to the people of Ontario to ensure they get the health care that they need.
Do you miss anything about being health minister and deputy premier?
I do really miss the health policy aspect of it. I really enjoyed working in that area. There were a number of challenges we faced, even before COVID came along, but they were certainly exacerbated by COVID. The work that I'm doing here at Fasken will also help clients with health policy issues and perhaps be able to bring forward some new solutions that may be of assistance to the government of Ontario as well.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.

Q&A: Christine Elliott on leaving Doug Ford’s government and her new legal gig

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