Premier Scott Moe declined an invitation to apologize for how he addressed COVID-19 during a question-and-answer session at the annual meetings of the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association (SUMA).The Saskatchewan Party cabinet was gathered in Regina on Wednesday when a SUMA delegate addressed Moe from an open mic during a "bear pit" session.."During the pandemic, we had a real bullying effect come down the pipe from you for the non-vaccinated. And as we head into an election year, I want to know, do you want to apologize for telling us that no more Mr. Nice Guy and we're gonna have to travel to centres to independent testing, and so on?" the delegate asked."It bruised a lot of people and there's a fair number of us unvaccinated. We're going to head into another pandemic and we want to know how you're gonna handle it if we vote you in again."Moe said he hoped neither those present or their children would ever have to face another pandemic."There was one in Saskatchewan, I believe in 1917, when we had the Spanish flu. There was a number of decisions that were made at that point in time that were equally as challenging and difficult as the decisions I would say that the people seated in front of you, in our caucus, were tasked with making as we found our way through the most recent pandemic. And we made every effort to find the balance," said Moe."What we were faced with at that point in time was about 79 ICU beds in the province and 135 people in them, just with COVID, never mind those that may have had a heart attack or those other 50 or 60 people that absolutely needed an ICU bed as well." "And that is really the precipitous of where some of the decisions came from, from the people you see in front of you and the decisions, ultimately that I communicated.""And we made every effort when it came to having proof of test policies in place so that people would not lose their place of employment. We made every effort to accommodate all but to ensure that we were providing the very environment for safe gathering, safe communities in a time when I don't think anyone had a lot of answers.""And so what I truly hope coming out of the last pandemic is that we don't have to face those types of questions and that type of a situation again, and that's why you're seeing decisions being made up here that involve an over 10% increase to our health care system."
