The documents — previously marked confidential — were ordered by the provincial court to be handed over by one of the authors, along with the health department and chief medical officer Dr. Deena Hinshaw, after the parents of five immunocompromised children and the Alberta Federation of Labor sued the UCP government over the decision to lift the mask mandate in February. Premier Jason Kenney announced on February 8 that the province would end the vaccine passport system and just five days later end the school mask mandate. The decision came shortly after the UCP COVID cabinet committee met and weighed options presented by Health Minister Jason Copping on how to move forward as Alberta moved out of the COVID-19 pandemic phase and into the transition phase. Story continues below ad The third and final phase is the endemic phase.
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The document says Alberta would lead into the endemic phase with a “phasing out of public health measures” to reduce the risk. However, the document warns that “the lifting of restrictions should only begin when pressures on the health care system have sufficiently eased and are likely to continue to ease.” “In my view, it clearly shows that their eyes were set squarely on politics, especially their narrow self-interest and politics, and not where they should be, which is about public safety, especially for our children,” said Gil McGowan. president of the Alberta Federation of Labour. As requested by the provincial government, Hinshaw provided recommendations to lift all restrictions, which included increasing the capacity of the health care system as it was about to be overwhelmed and warning of additional waves as a result of increased exposure. Trending Stories
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“She was right about all her warnings and they just ignored them. And now we’re paying the price,” McGowan said.
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Story continues below ad In total, he gave three options for lifting restrictions, the first being to lift most restrictions, including removing masks in schools in Step 1. The second option kept more restrictions in place and the school mask mandate was not lifted until Step 2. The third option left all decisions to the cabinet. “The big, big takeaway for me was how focused it was on reopening as a core concern of our pandemic policy,” said Lorrian Hardcastle, an associate professor of law at the University of Calgary’s Cumming School of Medicine. “There’s a lot of criticism out there that the government’s approach has at times favored politics over what made sense from a public health perspective. And I think we see evidence of that in this presentation.” The government denies that it is ignoring or bypassing any of Dr. Hinshaw.
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“The health minister gave the cabinet three options, which were uniformly presented with no proposed choice. Cabinet chose from those options,” Steve Buick, the health secretary’s press secretary, wrote in a statement Wednesday. “We stand by our decision to lift public health measures, including ending mandatory masks in schools. It was the right choice for the children and did not pose an undue risk to our communities.” Story continues below ad “I think the government’s concern is that if we start to erode the confidence of the cabinet, there will be very little they can discuss that the voters in the public won’t eventually have access to,” Hardcastle said. The biggest lesson, according to McGowan, is that “we’re really desperate to make sure we don’t make the same mistake in the fall that we made in the spring.” — With files from Tom Vernon, Global News 2:47 Alberta drops mask mandate for kids, education minister says boards can’t enforce theirs Alberta drops mask mandate for kids, education minister says boards can’t enforce theirs them – February 9, 2022 © 2022 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
