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When President Reagan was shot on March 30, 1981, Al Haig, then Secretary of State famously said: 聽鈥� As of now, I am in control at the White House鈥�.

The President was in the hospital, the Vice聽President聽was in the air and incommunicado, and the Secretary of State wanted to indicate that their nuclear arsenal was聽under control. 聽Except he聽sort of聽had it wrong.聽聽 The order of succession in the US goes to the Speaker of the House and the Speaker聽Pro Tempore聽of the Senate and THEN to the Secretary of State. 聽On the other hand he was managing the crisis and trying to convey confidence and wave off any foreign leader who might have wanted to test the command and control structure of the United States.聽聽He was in control.

There have been many crises in Canadian history and many of them have benefitted from ex post reviews and post mortems. 聽We have seen the聽Conscription crisis, the Oka standoff,聽Referenda crises,聽the 1998 Ice Storm, the Red River flood just before an election, Y2K, 9/11, SARS, H1N1 and many others. 聽

How do聽you manage in the 鈥渇og of war鈥�?聽聽Imperfect information is endemic and聽judgments made聽ex ante聽are almost always wrong聽ex post. 聽How to deal with decision making in the presence of extreme uncertainty? 聽

Nobody is ever totally in control. 聽How do you exercise your authority when the wheels are falling off?

Interpersonal relations only matter when you need them. 聽How do you build trust during a crisis? 聽How important is it to build good, trusting, confidence inspiring interpersonal relations during times of calm so that they can be used when needed in times of crisis?

Calling on several of these we will look at聽lessons to be learned from past crises. 聽Can you plan for a crisis? 聽How do you mobilize your staff? 聽How do you manage during a crisis? 聽How important is situational dynamics? 聽How do you manage a crisis and still plan for the long run future? 聽

Current crisis management of COVID-19 has brought out the best and the worst in people. 聽Several of our political leaders have risen to the occasion and have shown genuine talent at leadership. 聽Some of our leaders have known when to get out of the way and defer to others. 聽Some of our compatriots have chosen to spam us with nonsense pandemic hoax cures and treatments. 聽Some of engaged in price gouging and exploitation of the vulnerable. 聽Should prices go up during a crisis? 聽Some would have us rely on the value of the price system to signal responses required. 聽Others would have us suppress the price system to have government intervention supplant individual聽decision making. 聽When is it correct to rely on prices and when should the market be managed?

All of these questions will be addressed in this webinar. 聽A few of them will be answered. 聽And all of them should be聽considered聽stimulation聽for your thinking as we learn for the future from this聽crisis.

This webinar with Mel Cappe聽is part of our Policy Challenges During a Pandemic Series.

Register .

This webcast is open to the public. Priority during the Q&A section of this webcast will be given to Max Bell School MPP students. You can access the full series of briefs and webinars for the Policy Challenges During a Pandemic series here and sign up to receive email updates about this series here.