Treaty One Territory, Métis Homeland, Winnipeg, MB - Manitoba Liberal MLAs say with clear signs that Manitoba is heading into a fourth wave of Covid infections, the Manitoba Government must bring back daily updates and targeted restrictions in Southern Health where cases are growing.
"At every phase of the pandemic, the PCs have to be dragged kicking and screaming to get ready, and it is happening again in the fourth wave," said Dougald Lamont, MLA for St. Boniface and Manitoba Liberal Leader. "The third wave of the pandemic broke our health care system - nurses, doctors, paramedics are all in short supply. The PCs need to do more now to get ready, and they are not."
Lamont said there were a number of troubling warning signs that the PCs were not taking the fourth wave seriously - the same warning signs of complacency and lack of preparation that happened before Manitoba's deadly second and third waves of covid.
Before every wave, the PCs were quick to loosen restrictions and reduce the number of public briefings, and slow to bring these measures back in.
The PCs have also decided to let unvaccinated MLAs keep working in the Legislature, which Lamont said was a failure of leadership.
"We have a vaccine that is safe, that works, that will keep people out of hospital, yet the PCs are making a special exception for their own MLAs," said Lamont. "We can't have one set of rules for PC MLAs and one for everyone else. Either MLAs get vaccinated or they don't come to work in the Legislature."