Sask. fall sitting focused on vaccinations and government's 4th wave response

The Saskatchewan government started the legislative sitting rejecting criticism of its handling of the fourth wave by saying it was unvaccinated people spurring the rise in hospitalizations, but in the sitting's final week Premier Scott Moe warned the public against stigmatizing those who remain unvaccinated.

During the five-week sitting, Saskatchewan sent more than two dozen of its COVID-19 patients for care in intensive care units in Ontario. Canadian Forces health-care staff members were at Regina's General Hospital relieving workers there. For long stretches of the fall, Saskatchewan led the country in per capita cases and death rates.

October was the province's deadliest month of the pandemic, with 156 people losing their lives.

The Opposition spent the entire sitting dissecting the government's COVID-19 response and its knock-on impacts.

This culminated on the final day of the sitting with Opposition caucus members sharing stories of people who had come forward to share their hardship.

On numerous occasions, both Premier Scott Moe and Health Minister Paul Merriman said the government was forced to shift health-care workers to pandemic response because of the high number of unvaccinated people filling hospitals and ICU wards.

This week, Moe repeated his message that the most effective tool in fighting the pandemic is through vaccination and preventing hospitalizations.

Pandemic response

Vaccinations were the overarching theme of the fall sitting. 

From the opening week of the sitting, Opposition Leader Ryan Meili pointed to an August letter from Saskatchewan medical health officers that called for the implementation of indoor masking and proof of vaccination policies, among other things. 

Those policies were implemented in mid-September, and led to an increase in vaccination uptake and the eventual reduction of COVID-19 cases.

A week before the sitting, Moe told CBC's Morning Edition host Stefani Langenegger that his government could have acted sooner in announcing measures. One month later he said he "regrets" not implementing those measures sooner.  

Day after day in question period, Meili and his caucus accused Moe and Merriman of failing to take ownership of the decision not to implement measures. Both said the eventual implementation led to a near 250,000 increase in total doses from mid-September to the final day of the sitting, and subsequently fewer and fewer new cases.

For the first time in more than a year, guests were allowed inside the chamber, which led to the opposition inviting a stream of people unable to get the medical procedures they needed because of the pandemic.

In most cases, Merriman and even Moe took time to chat with them.

One particular case, unrelated to the pandemic, resulted in a reversal from the health minister.

Kirsten Finn spent days visiting the legislature hoping to convince Merriman to pay for the costs associated with her five-year-old Conner's life-saving surgery in the United States.

Months earlier, Merriman declined to cover the costs, which the family said topped $800,000. Merriman later said that, after reviewing new information, the province would reimburse the Finns.

Vaccine policy

Early on in the sitting, the Opposition introduced a motion to have the government implement all health measures recommended in an October letter from provincial medical health officers. 

The letter included vaccination requirements for students, or for parents of students too young to be eligible for their shot.

Education Minister Dustin Duncan, along with Moe and Merriman, rejected the recommendation and referred to the Opposition's position as being in favour of "forced vaccinations" on school children.

Meili later told reporters the Opposition was not in favour of a requirement at that point. His party said its motion was for a debate and not to take a policy position.

Vaccinations came up again after Duncan intervened on behalf of Weyburn constituents concerned that unvaccinated volleyball players would be unable to participate in a high school provincial tournament in Swift Current.

Duncan sent a letter to school divisions days before the tournament reminding them they were not to create policies that would exclude unvaccinated children from activities in or out of school. However, the school where the tournament was being played was in the midst of an outbreak and the local medical health officer had made a policy requiring vaccination. In the end, the tournament went ahead, with an option for a negative test added.

The opposition argued Duncan was going back on an earlier pledge to let divisions and local health officials set their own COVID-19 policies. Duncan said he was merely reminding them to follow the public health orders and advice of the province's chief medical health officer, who backed his letter.

A few weeks later, as the government was in the early days of its campaign to vaccinate nearly 200,000 children aged five to 11, a vaccination policy tweak again rankled the opposition.

Carolyn Brost Strom, a public health nurse in Prince Albert, came to the legislature to highlight the stress she and her colleagues were under, but also to raise questions about the vaccine policy shift. She was disappointed the government had decided to require parents to attend all COVID-19 vaccinations after initially having some in-school clinics set up during school hours.

All other school-based vaccination campaigns allow for consent forms for children of certain ages.

Merriman said the policy was needed because the vaccine was new and, "we don't want to ever give the perception we're giving the COVID-19 vaccine behind parents' backs."

Brost Strom and the opposition argued the policy would negatively impact uptake.

Premier questioned over phone call

The discussion on vaccination policies continued in the sitting's final week, with Moe defending an hour-long phone call he had with a woman at the head of a group opposing Saskatchewan vaccination policies.

Moe said there were disagreements during his call with Unified Grassroots founder Nadine Ness, but called the conversation "fruitful" and "interesting." In an online video, Ness said it was "a good, productive talk. And I foresee there being more in the future."

Ness, along with Saskatoon PPC candidate Mark Friesen, filed an injunction against the provincial government's proof-of-vaccination policy in late September. A judge threw out the challenge.

Friesen was one of the Saskatchewan 27 patients transferred to Ontario this fall.

Moe said he was asked by unnamed MLAs and a medical professional to call Ness. He told reporters Tuesday that he went into the call unfamiliar with Ness' position.

Moe said he did not know Ness and her co-applicants had unsuccessfully taken the province to court, eventually being ordered to pay $5,000 in costs to the government and the Crown Investments Corporation.

Meili said Moe should have "done his homework" before the call.

"It's pretty striking that he was willing to have that conversation, but got a letter from hundreds of doctors and blew them off," Meili said.

Moe said he and Ness agreed that "divisions we are seeing in our community and potentially an opportunity for us and me to address that."

Moe said the government is going to do everything it can to not "stigmatize the unvaccinated."

"As we move forward the approach of this government is going to be one of engagement, one of respectful dialogue. The government understands we can disagree without being disagreeable," Moe said in his final answer inside the house on Thursday.

LISTEN | The Morning Edition's political panel for Dec. 10