‘We have a government that is lying to us’: Meili takes shots at pandemic messaging

Is the provincial government downplaying the current situation on COVID-19 in Saskatchewan?

NDP Leader Ryan Meili thinks so.

Speaking to reporters Friday at the legislative building in Regina, the Opposition leader pointed to a virtual physician town hall meeting from Thursday.

In it, Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) leadership discussed the state of the pandemic, variants of concern and hospital capacity in the province.

At times, the outlook was not positive.

“We’re at the heart of the pandemic right now … I would call this a new pandemic inside (of) the previous pandemic,” chief medical officer Dr. Susan Shaw said.

Dr. John Froh, an SHA chief of staff for Saskatoon, used a pair of concerning analogies to describe the situation.

“I think we have normalized a bad situation …,” he said. “You know, they talk about boiling the frog in the water. It just doesn’t jump out. Well, maybe we’re the frog.

“My analogy is we have an acute-care system (and) it’s a bathtub. The drain is only so big … The water only goes down so much as people get better … And then the tap is the COVID patients. We’re in the tub, but we can’t turn off the tap. Someone needs to turn off the tap.”

When Meili heard statements like that, he said it was tough to swallow.

“This is real. These are people’s lives we’re talking about. Hundreds of people have died (and) many more will. This government has a chance to act now to prevent the worst of it,” he said.

“Right here in Saskatchewan, (there are) kids who don’t have parents anymore or who health-care workers are trying to find housing for because both of their parents are in the hospital.”

He accused Premier Scott Moe and Health Minister Paul Merriman of not taking the situation seriously enough, and of sending out different messaging than the SHA’s health experts.

“This is a premier who is desperate to pretend that he (has) this under control, and he doesn’t …,” Meili said. “We (have) a government that is lying to us.”

Merriman disagrees. He told reporters the province is doing what it can to reduce the spread of the virus, through both the vaccination campaign and the current health measures.

“We have expanded some of the measures that were imposed in Regina out to the rest of the province as far as household bubbles (and) reduction of worships services,” he said.

“So we’re comfortable right now that these are having an impact, because we haven’t seen the exponential numbers that were projected a few weeks ago … We are stabilizing, certainly in the Regina area and the rest of the province is hopefully stabilizing very soon as well.”