By CP TORONTO --  With an election looming, Ontario Premier Mike Harris has announced the demise of the independent commission responsible for the biggest single shutdown of hospitals in Canadian history.

The announcement yesterday, more than a year before the Health Services Restructuring Commission will actually disband, was seen largely as a political tactic to placate voters uneasy about the Tories' health-care restructuring plan.

But critics say even the symbolic demise of the commissioner so unpopular he calls himself the Darth Vader of Ontario health care isn't enough to win back public favour.

"The only thing the public is going to accept is Mike Harris getting up and saying 'We made a tremendous mistake,' " said Liberal health critic Gerard Kennedy.

"(He should say) 'We gave the commission the wrong directives, we fired too many nurses, we've created turmoil in the health-care system.' Mike Harris has been wrong, wrong, wrong."

London Centre MPP Marion Boyd, New Democrat health critic, said with an election on the horizon Tories are making changes in the hope voters forget restructuring drained the system of resources and caused chaos across the province.

Public opinion polls consistently suggest Ontario residents are most concerned about the province's health-care system.

Thirty-five Ontario hospitals have been ordered closed by the commission, with the savings to be redirected to pay for old-age homes and home-care services needed by an aging population.

The changes have been dramatic.

With hospitals already starting to close and an increase in long-term care beds still years away, hospitals have experienced a crunch that has led to chronic overcrowding in emergency rooms.

Most health-care experts agree the commission's restructuring was necessary to cope with the changing needs of patients. But many say the delivery has been chaotic.

Harris, keen to turn around the public perception, suggested yesterday the worst is over.

The "first phase" of restructuring that spelled the demise of dozens of hospitals will end when the commission issues its final report next month.

In that report, the commission will announce its decisions for the fate of hospitals in the three communities it has not yet dealt with -- North Bay, Niagara and Sault Ste. Marie.

Commission chief Duncan Sinclair will stay on in an advisory role until April The government has also hired Jeffrey Lozon, president of the city's St. Michael's hospital, to act as Ontario's deputy minister of health and long-term care.

The 18-month position is unusual because it places a veteran hospital administrator sympathetic to the Tories' health-care agenda in a key bureaucratic position.

Lozon will also be one of Ontario's highest paid deputy ministers, since he'll maintain the administrator's wage that in 1997 paid him $250,000 plus $75,000 in taxable benefits.

That's about double what his predecessor made.

In his new role as adviser, Sinclair, a retired professor of veterinary medicine, will continue to collect a stipend of $1 a year.

"I give thanks that it's over," he told Harris at a news conference. "Goodbye to Darth Vader."

Kelly Butt, chairperson of the London Health Sciences Centre board, said Lozon will be expected to improve the existing system, not make radical changes.

"I don't think (the provincial government) will want big restructuring decisions between now and election time," she said.

Lozon's challenge will be formidable, said the centre's chief executive officer, Tony Dagnone, pointing to the need for more nurses, improved emergency care and reduced waiting lists.