Premier Moe addresses current state of COVID-19 in Saskatchewan, attacks Liberal party

Premier Scott Moe has doubled down, saying there are no plans to reinstate COVID measures from the past, as well as there being no plans to make vaccines mandatory.

Moe joined Gormley on Thursday morning to talk about the state of COVID-19 in the province while echoing health minister Paul Merriman in urging people to go and get vaccinated in order to bring rising COVID numbers back down.

“With respect to bringing in public health measures, the government has spent an awful lot of time behind the front door of people’s homes, all governments over the course of the past two years,” Moe said. “We should be very apprehensive about going back there.

“When you have a tool as effective as vaccines today, we encourage everyone to go out and get vaccinated at their first opportunity because most certainly it is the most effective tool that we have.”

Despite encouraging the public on the effectiveness of the vaccines available in the province, Moe said the government will not be making them mandatory.

“That is not the government’s role to line people up and say that you are going to take this needle if you’re going to live in this society,” Moe said. “It’s not the government’s place to force people to be vaccinated. That is the place of employers to say if you choose to work here, these are the conditions of the workplace that we have.”

An increasing amount of workplaces and venues around the province have started to ask that people be fully vaccinated upon coming to work, or attending an event.

Currently, in the Canadian Football League (CFL), the Saskatchewan Roughriders and Edmonton Elks are the only two teams in the league that have not voiced support or implemented a policy requiring that fans entering their stadiums either be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or produce a recent negative test.

Moe said the decision to mandate vaccinations for Riders’ games will ultimately come down to the organization itself, something Moe said he will support if they choose to do so.

“If an organization such as our Saskatchewan Roughriders did decide to move forward with a proof of vaccination, we’ve seen a number of teams do that, the government would be supportive of that decision,” Moe said. “How the government would support the Roughriders decision would be by ensuring that individuals have easy access to their proof of vaccination.

“Right now you can print it off, I did mine the other day, and we’re actively working on is there a way for us to have a QR code so that people would be able to scan this for large events like we see with Roughrider games.”

The last public COVID briefing by Saskatchewan’s chief medical health officer, Dr. Saqib Shahab, and Premier Moe took place on July 7.

Many people on Twitter have questioned the lack of response from Moe and Shahab as cases have risen in the province.

Moe said there has been contact back and forth between himself and Shahab, despite there no longer being public COVID briefings.

“As we move forward, a government may have to look at those (COVID) measures, but it most certainly would not be our first place to go. What we want to do is support the people of this province, support our employers, support our organizations to ensure that as many people can ultimately get vaccinated as possible,” Moe said.

“I’ve been in my office I just came up from Regina, virtually every day I’m either in Regina, Saskatoon or in my home office and Dr. Shahab is just a real Energizer Bunny when it comes to working. We’ve been in contact back and forth on where we are and what COVID looks like here right now.”

As of Thursday morning, active cases of COVID-19 in the province stand at 1,528 and 67 per cent of people over the age of 12 are fully vaccinated.

Premier speaks out against federal Liberal party

Moe is firing back at the Liberal party after recent comments by prim minister Justin Trudeau, on “clawing back” for health transfer payments to Saskatchewan unless the province stopped offering private MRI’s.

“In Quebec and in Ontario, you just pay for an MRI. In Saskatchewan, you pay for yours, and then there’s one that is also provided then by the provider into the public system, thereby shortening our wait times,” Moe said. “I would say the system we have in this province with our private MRI’s and how they’re incorporated into the public system is far superior than just having the private system that’s in these other provinces.

“Why the Prime Minister singled out Saskatchewan, I think it’s just purely political and a result of a poor start to his campaign.”

Moe didn’t hold back on his comments regarding the current prime minister, adding that he believes Conservative party leader Erin O’Toole is shaping up to be a great candidate for the position.

“When you look at that the leaders coming out, I do see a conservative leader in O’Toole that is increasingly providing an option for Canadians and is really, in my opinion, starting to look very prime ministerial,” Moe said.

“What I do see is Mr. O’Toole is putting forward, he’s not concentrating on specifically what the Liberals have done wrong. He is focusing on what a conservative government and himself as a prime minister would do for Canadians and I think we’re starting to see Canadians take note.”