Mandryk: Moe can’t ignore COVID-19 reality

By Murray Mandryk
Political Columnist

It wasn’t so much the rah-rah nature of Premier Scott Moe’s State-of-Province before the Saskatoon Chamber of Commerce.

All politicians everywhere deliver these speeches in which they wax on about all the positives of the jurisdictions they represent. We hear them from all governments of all stripes.

Really, throne speeches like the one last week at the Saskatchewan legislature are little more than a reminder of all the things we should be proud of in this province. And, notwithstanding all our problems in Saskatchewan including COVID-19, there is a lot to be proud of.

But the first problem with Moe’s speech is that — even as one meant for a business audience like a Chamber of Commerce — it seemed to go out of its way to either ignore or downplay the realities of the fourth wave of this pandemic.

Even if Moe felt the need for an uplifting address to business types on our economic successes and potential he needed to seriously address the impact of COVID-19. Spending four minutes during a 36-minute speech to basically tell us what his government is doing is working right now just didn’t fly.

This was an address Moe knew would be heard by a lot of people other than Saskatoon business leaders.

Timing is everything in politics and Moe couldn’t have picked a much worse time or venue to downplay the pandemic.

The Premier’s Health Minister Paul Merriman had just receive a 1,500-word letter signed by all 21 medical health officers urging the government to re-instated temporary measures to deal with this fourth wave of COVID-19.

“The Medical Health Officers of Saskatchewan (MHOs) would like to express our continued and growing concern about the current state of COVID-19 in our province and the lack of effectiveness of the current public health measures to bring about the rapid reduction in cases needed to take the unprecedented pressure off our health system,” the MHO wrote, adding that the government’s decision to ignore their previous Aug. 26 letter “has resulted in a much larger 4th wave, which will therefore require a return to stronger restrictions to bring it under control.”

Worse for Moe and his Saskatchewan Party government, the letter bluntly stated that a recent reduction in daily case counts Moe touted in his chamber speech as evidence we are winning the COVID-19 battle “do not tell the full story” because Saskatchewan as few tests and a high test positivity rates.

“Without further action, it is highly likely that we will face even higher rates of hospitalization in coming weeks and risk health system collapse, as well as many more preventable deaths, “ the CMO letter that went on to call for a limit on household gatherings to only two vaccinated households for a 28-day, 25-per-cent capacity at weddings and funerals and reducing church attendance to or 25 per cent with a maximum of 150 people.

In a month where we are likely to see our highest number of COVID-19-related deaths and at a time when the province is forced to transfer critically ill ICU patients to Ontario because our hospitals can no longer handle the numbers, it’s hard to accuse the CMOs of overreacting.

Yet neither Moe nor Merriman’s office properly addressed the concerns raised in the CMO’s letter in any forum.

This takes us to the biggest problem with Moe’s speech and his government right now.

While his speech was a vey much a pitch as to why people should come to Saskatchewan, it drew a lot of angry response from doctors and other health care providers threatening to leave this province because of a government they say doesn’t their health care concerns seriously.

Maybe they’re just threats, but frustrating doctors seldom works out well for governments — especially, here in Saskatchewan.

Moe needs a better COVID-19 response.

Positive speeches on the economy are not addressing the problem.