Tank: Sask. alone in West in spurning COVID response review

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Alberta spent $2 million on a controversial government-appointed task force to review the province’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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In keeping with Premier Danielle Smith’s soft spot for medical quackery, the report, which was made public in January, suggested limits on COVID-19 vaccines and was panned by doctors, the Alberta Medical Association and the Canadian Medical Association.

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In Manitoba, the NDP government abandoned its commitment to a public inquiry into the COVID-19 pandemic — a position established when the NDP was in opposition — and will settle for a review, according to the Winnipeg Free Press.

In British Columbia, an independent review of that province’s pandemic response called “Lessons Learned” was completed in September of 2022. Two years ago, a report was released stemming from an inquiry by the B.C. human rights commissioner into the rise of hate during the pandemic.

And in Saskatchewan? Crickets. No need for any sort of review or task force or inquiry, apparently.

You can certainly question the value of the Alberta approach designed to pander to conspiracy theorists and eye the downgrading from an inquiry to a review in Manitoba as a crass political move.

But the absence of any sort of assessment dismisses the 2,095 people who officially died of COVID-19 in Saskatchewan since the pandemic hit five years ago this week.

Given our population, that ranks as one of the highest deaths rates in the country. As of September, according to statistics compiled by the federal government, Saskatchewan suffered 171 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 people.

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That’s well above Canada’s death rate (152), as well as that of Alberta (141) and B.C. (134). Only Manitoba (177) and Quebec (232) recorded higher death rates than Saskatchewan. And, since Manitoba and Quebec tested for COVID-19 post mortem, you would expect a higher death rate.

So it’s probable Saskatchewan sustained the highest COVID-19 death rate in Canada. But no reflection is evidently needed here in the home of medicare, even as the health-care system continues to struggle in the wake of the pandemic.

Saskatchewan distinguished itself during COVID-19 with resistance to restrictions to stop the spread of the deadly respiratory disease and by becoming the first province to remove all pandemic measures three years ago now, doing so in the middle of one of the deadliest stretches of the contagion.

That period also witnessed the rise of a conspiracy-driven, anti-science populist movement, which Saskatchewan’s government seemed more than willing to appease.

So you can understand the reluctance of Premier Scott Moe and his Saskatchewan Party government to revisit this period, particularly given the sagging support in the province’s two largest cities where the party once dominated. Why remind people about what looks like a big failure?

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But the NDP Opposition seems just as willing to consign the pandemic to history without a serious analysis of the response. Perhaps that attitude stems from its lack of electoral traction during the pandemic, despite being led by a medical doctor, Ryan Meili.

Meili announced his resignation three years ago as the province was planning to remove restrictions. He said at the time that he was quitting because his voice had become too associated with the push for pandemic measures.

Yet all of those considerations for both major Saskatchewan parties qualify as political. And, while the COVID-19 pandemic delivered undeniable political reverberations, it ranks as a public health crisis, the consequences of which we are still feeling.

Such a monumental shattering of our society requires that some basic questions be asked and answered. What did we get right? What did we get wrong? How can we be better prepared in the future? How can we save more lives next time?

All of those questions still lack answers in Saskatchewan — even though there’s certain groups with their own motives that would be happy to provide responses.

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But the Land of the Living Skies can only fully move past the pandemic after it determines whether the province followed the right path in responding to the deadly plague.

Phil Tank is the digital opinion editor at the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.

ptank@postmedia.com

twitter.com/thinktankSK

@thinktanksk.bsky.social

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