November 8, 2020
Manitoba's Covid-19 outbreak is bad and growing worse. We have had hundreds of doctors pleading with the government to change course. We have been told by medical experts that we are seeing exponential growth in cases, and by experts in emergency management that unless we act now we will never catch up.
We want to make it clear: we have the time and resources to change the path we are on and get through this. But not on the path we are on now.
We are calling on the Manitoba Government to depoliticize the emergency response to the Pandemic. The Health Minister and Premier must have the humility to recognize they are out of their depth and hand over the pandemic response to independent and medical and emergency experts, and give them the resources they need to get the job done. The Premier's and Health Ministers jobs should be limited to signing cheques.
I have spoken with Minister Dan Vandal and other federal government representatives. They are waiting to be called on: the military can be mobilized only if the provincial government asks.
There are a number of actions the Federal government can and must take unilaterally in order to shift the trajectory of this pandemic and save lives, whether the provincial government is willing to participate or not.
Manitoba is facing this catastrophic outbreak for two reasons: a complete failure on planning and prevention, including political interference with emergency response and public health, and an ideological refusal to help businesses and workers.
The first is killing people, the second will kill the economy.
We are calling for the Manitoba Government to hand over its pandemic response to non-political experts in public health and emergency pandemic response.
Manitoba needs a hard lockdown but that will only be possible if workers and businesses can survive. We need "Code Red" supports now.
To force the province to deal with the crisis, we need Federal Regulation to:
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