 After the news of Levine's appointment broke on May 1, 1998, outraged readers wrote record numbers of letters to Ottawa newspapers and flooded radio phone-in shows with angry calls.Both of Ottawa's major newspapers, the Ottawa Citizen and the Ottawa Sun, published editorials and columns condemning Levine's appointment and calling on him to resign.On May 19, 1998, the "hurricane of protest" drew national attention when a boisterous crowd confronted the hospital's board of directors in an Ottawa auditorium expressing "unmitigated fury" and referring to Quebec separatists as "anti-Canadians,
bastards."