Airdrie-Cochrane NDP

CBC NEWS: "The level of political direction and, at times, interference in Alberta's pandemic response is revealed in 20 audio recordings of the daily plann...ing meetings of the Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) obtained by CBC News, as well as in meeting minutes and interviews with staff directly involved in pandemic planning. Taken together, they reveal how Premier Jason Kenney, Shandro and other cabinet ministers often micromanaged the actions of already overwhelmed civil servants; sometimes overruled their expert advice; and pushed an early relaunch strategy that seemed more focused on the economy and avoiding the appearance of curtailing Albertans' freedoms than enforcing compliance to safeguard public health." "What is there suggests to me that the pandemic response is in tatters," said Ubaka Ogbogu, an associate law professor at the University of Alberta who specializes in public health law and policy. https://www.cbc.ca//alberta-covid-19-response-tension-reco

QUOTE ABTraceTogether is, from our view, simply a better and more effective public health tool." That’s Premier Jason Kenney. We now know that statement was... a barefaced FALSEHOOD. This week, we learned their App has been used to trace contacts in just NINETEEN cases. More than the Premier’s dishonesty this FAILURE means more people get sick and more people’s lives are at risk. The Premier must not put his feud with Ottawa ahead of the health and safety of Albertans.

My fellow Albertans, I am calling on Jason Kenney and the UCP government to implement a mandatory mask policy for all public indoor spaces in all regions on the... enhanced list. The number one way we can protect the most vulnerable is to control community spread. Rural areas and smaller communities are at higher risk of seeing their hospitals and continuing care centres overwhelmed and their economies hurt if we don’t get COVID-19 cases under control. Currently 91 of Alberta’s 142 regions are on the enhanced list, and many do not have mask policies in place including, but not limited to, the City of Medicine Hat, the City of Brooks, the Town of Drumheller, and the City of Cold Lake. In Manitoba, the rapid spread of COVID-19 cases in smaller communities saw their hospitals quickly overwhelmed. In one instance, nurses were forced to triage patients in their cars as health care workers struggled to keep up with demand. Yesterday, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe announced a mask mandate for all communities over 5,000. This expands a previous mandatory mask policy for Regina, Saskatoon and Prince Albert. The UCP government has already gone out of their way to undermine health care in rural and remote parts of Alberta. I’m very concerned that if we don’t reduce cases quickly, these centres will be completely overrun. At the end of the day, it’s a fairly simple thing we can do. Masks reduce community spread and don’t hurt the economy. Let’s keep our economy running. Let’s keep people in their jobs. Wear a mask.

KENNEY MUST RELEASE ALL OF DR. HINSHAW’S RECOMMENDATIONS Premier Jason Kenney must come clean with Albertans and publicly release all of the COVID-19 r...ecommendations Dr. Deena Hinshaw presented to cabinet this week, including the public health measures he refused to implement. Jason Kenney is clearly hiding public health advice from Albertans, said NDP Health Critic David Shepherd. It’s obvious that the small package of half-measures Kenney announced yesterday were all that he could convince the extremist fringe of his caucus to accept. Albertans have the right to hear Dr. Hinshaw’s unfiltered, professional advice and judge Kenney’s decisions for themselves. If Jason Kenney really is putting into force all the public health advice he’s getting, then I say prove it. Kenney took no meaningful action on masks, leaving Alberta as the only province in Canada without a provincewide mask policy, despite having the highest number of active cases. Masks don’t close business, they don’t infringe on people’s freedom, Shepherd said. They are a simple and low-cost way for every Albertan to help reduce the spread of COVID-19. But we know that several UCP MLAs promote anti-mask conspiracy theories, and clearly Kenney was too cowardly to stand up to them. Kenney’s restrictions on indoor public gatherings are packed with complicated exemptions, despite the fact that more than 80 per cent of new COVID cases can’t be traced to their source. Kenney did not base these exemptions on data, because that data doesn’t exist, Shepherd said. He failed to prepare Alberta’s contract tracing system for the second wave. AHS has given up on tracing cases more than ten days old, and now it’s impossible to develop effective targeted measures. After months of insisting that Alberta schools are safe, Kenney abruptly ordered all students in Grades 7-12 to move to online learning next week, and not to return to classrooms until January 11, 2021. We presented the government with a plan for safe school re-entry in July, and Kenney ignored it, said NDP Education Critic Sarah Hoffman. As recently as last week, the Education Minister insisted that there were no problems in schools. Alberta students, staff and families have a right to see the information that Dr. Hinshaw presented that prompted this sudden decision. Albertans are tired of hearing the Premier claim he is following Dr. Hinshaw’s advice, and then refuse to back it up. It’s long past time for Albertans to be shown the full picture. We are calling on Premier Kenney to release all of Dr. Hinshaw’s recommendations, presentations and reports from the last week.

The number one way we can protect the most vulnerable is to control community spread. Rural areas and smaller communities are at higher risk of seeing their hos...pitals and continuing care centres overwhelmed and their economies hurt if we don’t get COVID-19 cases under control. Currently 91 of Alberta’s 142 regions are on the enhanced list, and many do not have mask policies in place including, but not limited to, the City of Medicine Hat, the City of Brooks, the Town of Drumheller, and the City of Cold Lake.

Ladies, your Premier is gaslighting you. Don’t believe for a second that he’s concerned about you, because: How many women have missed work because their children have been sent home from school to isolate? How many women are at risk of losing their jobs because of the Premier’s plan to layoff 11,000 healthcare workers?... How many women are on the front lines of our healthcare system facing physical, mental, and emotional burnout? How many women were part of the layoff of 20,000+ educational assistants this spring? How many women are teachers who have had to return to work in schools where classes aren’t physically distanced and they’re expected to be able to transition to online learning with minimal notice? This pandemic is ALL about women. We are fighting for gender equality, but the current reality is that we aren’t there yet. The burdens of this pandemic disproportionally fall on women, and they’re being gaslighted by this government.

The second wave is here. Alberta is approaching 10 THOUSAND active cases roughly 1,000 new cases EVERY DAY this weekend. Frontline health workers have sounded ...the alarm for weeks but the Premier ignored them. Now, almost every major hospital is dealing with outbreaks and this weekend, a leaked memo from AHS shows cases will double within two weeks. ICU admissions will hit 120 people50 more than capacity. WHY is the Premier hiding the numbers? WHY does he keep waiting for things to get worse? WHY won’t he show leadership to flatten the curve?

Not something to be proud of.

Jason Kenney claims to be a good fiscal manager; however, the most recent report from the Auditor General found his Government made more than $1.5 billion in accounting errors... Read all about it: https://www.albertandp.ca/ucp-audit

Premier, it’s time. Time for a new obsession. Time to come out of hiding.... Time to step up.

CALGARY HERALD: "The 49-year-old Calgary man survives on $1,685 per month. From the cost of food and housing, to gloves and masks to keep healthy amid the pande...mic, there’s little left to spare. Even just a few dollars less per month would be devastating. Shaw is one of nearly 70,000 Albertans who rely on the Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped program to afford basic needs. But the UCP government is considering cuts to AISH next year, with an eye toward a possible shift in program eligibility. Those like Shaw say the review has left them anxious over the possibility their lives will deteriorate if the government reduces already sparse benefits." https://calgaryherald.com//like-im-drowning-financially-ca

"The UCP promised "fiscal responsibility" and "respect for taxpayers' money" and chided Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi for not having "his fiscal house in order." ...In reality, the Alberta government just made $1.6-billion in accounting errors." https://www.sprawlcalgary.com/ucp-fiscal-responsibility