ugh good afternoon everyone uh
today we are here to announce two things first the relaxation of
some of the public health orders and secondly more financial supports for
businesses and the arts and culture sector last friday you'll recall that minister audrey
gordon and as well as dr brent russon announced that the current public health orders would be
extended until tuesday february 8th to allow for additional time to confirm the trend and the covet
19 data and its impact on the health care system we are seeing some positive trends in the
data throughout the province indicating that covid19 is starting to stabilize in our province
as those trends continue i am pleased to announce as of february 8th we will begin to lift some of
the restrictions these new measures will remain in effect for the period of two weeks until february
22nd and new measures will take effect that will include changes to gatherings and private
residences retail restaurant license premises capacity and museum and art gallery capacity
as well as capacity for sporting events i will now pass it over to dr russon who will
fill us in on the details over to you thank you thank you premier good afternoon brent russon
manitoba's chief provincial public health officer last week we announced an extension of
those public health orders we had been looking at modeling and looking at trends many
of which were showing the peak or pending peak or or plateau at the time we needed some more
time to look at those at those trends so we were encouraged at the time but uh weren't able to
make a definitive call as this week as has passed we see that many of those indicators continue
to be stable or trending in the right direction and so we are getting a better understanding
of where we are in this in this wave so one of those factors that we look at and one of the
most important ones is the the strain on health care system so we look at hospital admissions
both hospital missions and icu admissions those that are positive for covert 19 so these
have been very important indicators we've broken those down in the past as infectious and those
considered recovered or non-infectious at the time but what we see is as we have widespread
transmission of omicron in the community we see very significant numbers of people who
are in hospital and test positive for covid for so for public health as we look at our need for restrictions and our path forward
it's really important for us to understand who's in hospital because of covet not in hospital
incidentally related to to covet and so it's we know that because omicron is so widespread
we know that every person admitted to hospitals tested for okran we're going to find out find
people that were there for other reasons but happen to test positive record for covet so when
we look at hospitalizations when you look at various ways of doing this through chart audits
we see that about 60 percent of those that we report that are admitted to hospital
are there for reasons other than covet so those are people that are found to be
incidentally positive for covet so they would be in hospital um for these reasons
with or without covet so we're looking about 40 percent of those that we report in
hospital um are related to covid so this is uh still all those people need care all
those people that are admitted still put that strain on our health care providers
but it's important for us public health looks at our the need for restrictions who is there for
uh covet and um and so certainly we see that uh uh that split where um in in some uh days up
to about uh uh one third of them were there for uh covet and so it certainly helps inform our
modeling um and our path forward so when we look at icu admissions in the same manner they that
is flipped over we see that about two-thirds of people or about 70 percent of people admitted
to icu are there for covet so we see that that trend that the majority of people who are covet
positive and i see are actually there for covet but about one one-third or there are four reasons
other than uh their coveted infection um and so it's certainly relevant uh to the way we look
at our numbers um when we look at those icu numbers again it's very important uh to
highlight the importance of vaccination we see the the benefits of vaccination
still protecting against severe outcomes and why we're really pushing our way forward
continues to be uh vaccinating as many manitobans as we can so any manitoban who's eligible for any
of the dose first second or third please get that as soon as as possible so it's certainly been
been a while since we've been able to consider easing some of these public health restrictions
and so based on from what we're seeing and things like hospital admissions and case reports
looking at absenteeism rates from different sectors we do see it's very likely that we've
hit a peak in in manitoba for case generation we still see an icu some of that slowing trend
but still upwards so we can move cautiously at this point we all know that the public health
measures were in place temporarily they're always meant to be temporarily and meant to be in place
for only as long and to the degree that they are required so uh the place we're at right now
we are recommending that uh new public health orders take effect on tuesday february
8th they'll be in effect for two weeks um and so some of those details so loosening
restrictions on private gatherings with more people allowed to be together indoors and
outdoors again with differential rules based on vaccine status adjusting capacity
limits at many public places so we're going to maintain the proof of vaccine requirements
at the places that they're required right now we're going to maintain the 50 percent capacity
limit where they are right now what we're going to do is is lift that maximum cap we had these many
of these places capped at 250 now we're going to remove that cap so it's still going to be proof
of vaccine wherever that was required to pass still be 50 capacity wherever that was required
in the past but removing that cap of 250 people we've had that liquor sales to stop at 10 we're
going to extend that to 12 a.m and as far as sports uh we will allow tournaments again
for indoor and outdoor sports and recreation so over those two weeks we're going to continue to
monitor those trends we know that the incubation period for omicron is shorter and so our previous
duration of restrictions were based on a much longer incubation period so we feel that the
two weeks is going to give us a better picture of where we're at and again consider a a path to
a further loosening of the restrictions we know these are only in place uh temporarily so we still
maintain the proof of vaccination requirements but we continue to message to manitobans the
importance of receiving those those vaccines as soon as you become eligible so we know manitobans
have largely stepped up and followed these rules the majority vast majority manitobans
have done their part and gotten vaccinated and we all know that our path forward must be one
to continue to remove these public health orders over time but in obviously a cautious manner so
again humans have done the actions manitobans have taken were once again in this place to start
losing loosening our public health restrictions so thanks uh to all manitobans for all of your hard
work thanks to our healthcare workers who have uh given up so much during these tough times
and i'm going to pass it back to the premiere thank you very much dr rusin and and while
today's announcement will be welcome news to to many manitobans we recognize that many
businesses will still be impacted by restrictions able to operate to their full capacity and that's
why today we are also announcing an expansion to the sector support program to help manitoba
businesses and arts and culture organizations through this challenging time the expansion
will provide a second payment to businesses that have been previously approved and affected by
public health orders in place as of january 31st expand eligibility under the program to include
event rentals catering and photographers and extend the pro the program intake
period until february 28th of this year often described as the first to close and last to
open we recognize how difficult this time has been for manitoba's vibrant arts and culture sector
we are also allocating six million dollars in new funding to the arts and culture sustainability
program to support organizations in the sector that are negatively impacted and affected by
the covid19 public health order restrictions moving forward we will consult we continue to
consult with our public health officials and our stakeholders as we move through this pandemic
and continue to learn to live with this virus assuming the cobit 19 data from manitoba
continues along the path that is projected we will for we will be in a position hopefully
to further relax restrictions in the weeks and months ahead situation permitting and based
uh off of what the data is telling us at the time we will be looking to remove a significant
amount of capacity limits and restrictions later this spring we hope to be in a position
of relaxing nearly all restrictions and moving to recommendations i want to thank the over 87
percent of manitobans 18 and older who have been immunized with at least two doses and to those
who made the choice to protect the nearly 70 000 manitoba children with a dose of the vaccine
to date our province has administered over 2.7 million doses of the vaccine we know that vaccines
work i encourage manitobans to get their third dose when eligible to recharge your immunity to
covet 19.
Getting your third dose of the vaccine decreases your risk of needing icu care by 139
times compared to someone who is unvaccinated i want to thank manitobans who have made
personal professional and financial sacrifices and have done their part by getting vaccinated and
following the fundamentals i want to thank all of our front line and essential service workers
for helping to keep manitobans safe during this pandemic i am confident we will get through
this together thank you to all of those manitobans and we're now open for questions madame premier we
have the second highest death rate in the country through to copenhagen right now we're averaging
seven deaths a day we had seven more today how do you reconcile that with what you just announced
so um what i will say is that obviously we've been working with public health to see and and look
at ways that we can reduce the restrictions for for those out there i think people are are ready
to get back to some some normalcy as part of their life when it comes to deaths and how they're
reported and in comparison to other provinces i think we are looking and i've asked for
those numbers to see and those comparisons across other provinces to see are the are we
comparing apples to apples when it comes to this and so you know we're obviously looking at
that and you know but to all those manitobans we know this has been an incredibly difficult
time we know that there has been a loss of of of loved ones and and what i would say
is as well to manitobans you know that we will get through this together it is a
very challenging time what we want to do is ensure though that that you know all manitobans
will be able to have the access to health care outside of just kobed but but other other things
as well and we're obviously concerned about those uh who are suffering from mental health and and
other issues out there that we need to to focus on as well so what do you say to the elderly uh
disabled have immunocompromised manitobans who are living in fear right now those are the ones living
in fear not general society that they continue to see this widespread omicron spring they continue
to see yes it is milder on an individual basis but you can even if you if you talk to medical experts
they say we're underestimating covet deaths not overestimating them as you just implied what
do you say to the families and people who are disabled and you know compromised now what i would
say first and foremost is get vaccinated and make sure you've gotten you're fully you're fully up
to to being vaccinated and you get the extra dose of the third dose as well um i think that you know
obviously these are very very challenging times we don't want people to be living in fear what we
want to do is is create an environment here that the manitobans don't have to live in fear you're
suggesting those people aren't vaccinated is that what you're saying no to the extent that
they're not then then they should be but i believe that most of them are but to their
families and loved ones who may not be um to to those people as well to encourage as
many manitobans to get vaccinated as possible the vaccination messaging that you often go to
i appreciate that it's an important message but i can ask you important what do you have to say
to vaccinated people who are immunocompromised elderly or disabled i would say that we've had uh
you know restrictions in place to try and help um you know with our hospital system i think what
we're seeing and i'll ask brent to maybe comment on this in terms of the number of people in in
in hospital the hospitalization numbers and and icu numbers that we've seen um you know plateau
and uh i think that you know that's what the restrictions were in place for as we're starting
to see the movement towards the trend that we are i think we're we're in a position to be able
to um to reduce those restrictions so people can get back to to living um living their lives
how much of this was demanded by businesses and i'm talking specifically about the removal of the
250-person crowd we're now going to see thousands of people in large venues like the downtown
hockey arena and some uh casinos potentially is is that not an additional risk and who who
asked for that cap to be lifted so what i would say is is that um certainly we are listening
to those in the business community you recall three four weeks ago when we extended uh the
orders then and we extended it another week businesses are constantly reaching out and giving
us their perspective it's why we've announced further supports for some
of those businesses uh today with respect to the orders uh that are before us
today i'll ask uh brent as well to to comment on these these are things that will work together
that we work together with with public health on yeah and so i mean this follows our typical
approach to as when we were loosening restrictions they we loosened them in the reverse order of what
we put them on so we added these restrictions late and you'll see and then those were the first now
to to uh to be removed so it's pretty uh standard approach that we've had for our cautious loosening
of restrictions over time and despite the um you know all the evidence we've seen is that if you're
fully vaccinated and you're not immunocompromised you the chance of having very severe outcomes for
normal quantities is quite low but if you have a large crowd you will get immunocompromised
and people at risk in that crowd um are you comfortable with allowing thousands of people in
an area even if they have to be fully vaccinated so i mean the the risk will never be zero right
so people who are living with immune compromise with severe medical conditions they've always
been at risk of many different things they've been at risk every respiratory virus season as
well and and and uh if we see another variant or you know who knows what covid will do next
respiratory virus season people who are in those conditions are you know are unfortunately
at increased risk so um you know we've uh we have a lot of measures still in place um so we do have
proof of vaccine requirements we have uh masking that will be required uh but yeah we'll never
have a zero risk and then some you know people will have to consider some of their own risks
as well like in pre-pandemic times as well and we were messaging this from the first wave of the
pandemic that if you're at increased risk you need to reconsider how much activities you uh you take
place so even before we had our first restrictions we always had that high risk messaging as
well and and that that doesn't change the reason manitoba hasn't gone with a two household
bubble formula like some other provinces have to limit that extended prolonged close indoor
contact that we see in household gatherings you know with the private gatherings i think
every jurisdiction has struggled with what's the the right way to do this right and it's a balance
between one is um we want to limit contacts um but we need to do so through messaging and through
orders that are really difficult to enforce and so what's the best way to do that what's the
clear way of doing it do we say it's it's one other bubble or two other bubbles what does that
bubble make up uh or do we say a list a specific number and so i think every every jurisdiction
has struggled that we've considered it and um and i think we've taken different approaches
before i think it's just it's really challenging to limit gatherings in the private residence
uh it's it's important but i think most of that relates to uh you know to our messaging
um uh to to do whatever you can to reduce those those gatherings and of course if you're at
increased risk of severe outcomes then you need to uh consider reducing those even more dr medical
professionals have clapped back at this notion of with kobit from coveting a lot of people yeah
they're not there primarily because of coping but covet is a systemic illness and it causes a lot
and exacerbates other problems they also say that there's a lot of people not getting medical care
right now for all variety of reasons in the health system because there is so many common infections
even the ones that you classify a strict code so i know you're not from the shared health system
side here but how what do you say to those doctors that say that really we're still really
struggling in the healthcare system right now well i think there's i mean there's certainly strained
healthcare system for lots of reasons right as they um we've seen absenteeism we've seen the
strain over over two years there's backlogs and things so so i mean there's no no doubt there is
that strain do we use public health restrictions and remove liberties solely based on on on that
strain if the strain isn't entirely based on um you know directly related to covid these are kind
of those balancing that the challenge we have so when you talk about the you know the roughly 60 of
the hospital missions that we um announce each day if they would be there either way they're
there regardless of cover they just haven't have coveted it's certainly not irrelevant
certainly it's certainly relevant to how we consider moving forward with our restrictions
but no doubt is that in any way saying to depict that there isn't a strain on the system
but it's certainly relevant to us that you know 60 of the people there would be there regardless of
kovitz so when we're looking at our restrictions it's something we need to consider but but
absolutely the message is not to say that there isn't a strain on the health care system there's
lots of reasons for that since you're appointed premier have you gone to visit a hospital yourself
in er and i see you to see it yourself firsthand trying to think if i have been in i guess
uh not since i've been premier no i haven't you know i i think it's out of respect for um you
know for the for the public health orders and not wanting to be in a position where i'm going in
and potentially uh infecting uh further i think uh you know we're certainly in discussions and i i
rely on our minister of health um and uh you know to to to reach out and in those circumstances
i certainly am not opposed to going and doing that it's basically been out of uh an abundance
of caution i would say premiere in mid-december we had around 381 million left in contingency for
covid related things i know that we spent 22 on on more business supports and i'm guessing that's
what you're matching today so how much is left and why not offer more to buy some more time yeah
i mean you know certainly um you know we we offer these programs out there and then we see
what the what the uptake is and we try and and and change them accordingly to ensure that we
can offer more supports to as many manitobans as we can and so what we have heard from the
business community from the chambers and others that they that they appreciate these supports uh
to the extent that there's more that we can do i think we are doing more we are reaching out now
to the arts and culture sector uh there may be uh some other supports that are needed down the
road and we'll will gauge what those will be and and um and uh take it from there for two more
questions before we go to the phone doctor what is our uh supply looking like for the treatments
for people who uh like the monoclonal antibodies yeah and so that was uh we originally received
roughly 1100 treatment courses uh for pax levitt the oral antiviral and so that is run through
through shared health so details on on the distribution thus far should should go
over to them premier you've spoken up a favor of vaccination your health ministers
called yourself a vaccine ambassador but not everybody in your caucus
is acting like a vaccine ambassador i'm just wondering what why is that and is
there anything that you can do to encourage your caucus to be more vaccine ambassadorial
i don't know what the proper term is but and and can you do that while maintaining your
support in those areas of manitoba without alienating people in winnipeg where most of the
voters are who will see that your government gets re-elected or not yeah i think what's really
important is that as a government from day one once the vaccines were released you know we
we be we all became or you know became invest ambassadors within government to ensure that that
as many manitobans got vaccinated as possible uh to the extent that those were in positions that
you know were saying some things contrary to that they've been removed from those positions we'll
continue to have those discussions in caucus i think it's very important that caucus members have
the ability to represent their communities we have a very diverse uh group of individuals within
our caucus they have every right to represent their constituencies those that that elected
them and so we have those discussions in caucus carol we'll come back to the room after thanks thank you a reminder to our reporters on the
line you will have one preliminary and one follow-up question up first this afternoon
from city news mike uh good afternoon mike albanese from city news uh my question is
with all the other loosenings of restrictions um manitobans were able to look at tangible
stats and see that infections were on a downtrend that less people are testing positive
but with the current restrictions to testing we can't necessarily go and see how many people
are infected with the virus a lot has to just go on the word of public health officials so dr
rusin what can you tell manitobans to make them more comfortable with the fact that we are
restricting while there could still be a lot of virus in the province yeah well we know there is a
lot of virus right and so if we thought that there was really no risk we would loosen uh you know
lift all the restrictions so but we're not we're doing so in a very cautious manner we presented
modeling last week that that shows where that that that peak likely has been and and the uh the
path forward we redid those models and they show us the same thing this uh this uh week that we've
uh very likely peaked in cases very likely peaked in hospital emissions and are um either peaking
or peaking soon regarding admissions to icu we look at industries or sectors where there
is uh much more frequent testing and look at absenteeism rates and their test rates and we
see those are all showing us a peak a week or two ago so there's a number of indicators that
we look at and we've actually we presented those the the modeling last week so you're right things
have have changed in the way we we look at things because of the testing approach but we still
have a number of indicators that we've presented thanks for that answer and with
the loosening of restrictions i know we're not pulling all restrictions
right away but that does add variability do our projected numbers our projected cases
our projected future outcome does that not go a little out the window when
we start adding these variables in as such as not a cap of 250 people at a hockey
game could have tens of thousands so it's why we you know continue to message uh many uh you know
many of the factors you know the fundamentals that we talk about why we move things very cautiously
to see those effects um and because you're right there is some unpredictability when we when we
loosen certain measures there's just no way you know around that and that's why we move cautiously
and evaluate the effect before we loosen loosen so i think again these measures the public health
restrictions they have negative effects as well um and so it's a matter of trying to to find that
balance which is which is difficult but we feel based on the modeling based on numbers we see this
is a you know a pragmatic approach at this point from ctv winnipeg jeff oh hi uh hopefully
you can hear me okay i have trouble getting in i'm just wondering uh dr russon steve's
already asked about it but um i i take it then with the lifting of that cap uh i guess
the jets can start having if they want higher capacity limits that's correct yeah so
so venues such as that sporting venues would be proof of vaccine 50 capacity masking but
there isn't a cap on the uh on the total okay both yourself in the premier have
have alluded to this but do you have a timeline mapped out you know after the next two
weeks of like other provinces have done like here are some key dates for when we're going to
start to loosen other restrictions do you have kind of a map well certainly it's a thing that's
we've we're always discussing you know the the short-term and medium and long-term approaches
to two things so we don't have specific dates um and and it's really challenging to come up with
a specific dates i think the message is that given where we are we are right now
if if we don't see anything unexpected that we're looking at a restricting
restriction free manitoba by spring from chvn taylor hi good afternoon i'm looking at the health
orders here and i see that for places of worship there was quite a big uh jump in how many people
could attend particularly uh without uh proof of vaccination requirements can you tell me a little
bit more about uh why you decided to do this well the uh so this is referring to the uh
yeah yeah so we have it in places of worship right now there's a 50 capacity with no cap
similar to other other places they had a 25 capacity um or you know 25 people although
they could get to 250 people if they cohorted so at this measure we just loosen that
remove the cohort requirements so it's 25 capacity or 250 whichever is
lower but not the need to to cohort thanks and when you were
making these orders uh what did you hear from religious leaders about this yeah so you know with uh with public
health again we've when we're loosening uh restrictions we sort of just go in
the um you know the reverse order of them coming in so this is a very moderate modest uh
loosening of these these restrictions so public health hasn't engaged with with religious
leaders at this point this is all about a cautious reopening when we're just seeing our
numbers starting to plateau so we only felt a very cautious reopening at this point was warranted
as well obviously we have a ministerial working group that works very closely with stakeholders
in the community uh including our faith-based community as well so we're in constant contact
with them about about the orders as well they reach out from time to time we reach out to
them and we as we do with all stakeholders from cjob skyler hi guys i know i asked you
uh dr russon about this last week um just looking for a little more context to some of
these hospitalization numbers i know we have you know around 1500 medical beds in the province
uh maybe a couple hundred of them were open last week if that and of course now you're providing
the uh you know with or because of type data um but in terms of context where does this um
you know compared to say like 2019 2018 when you know the hospitals were filling up slightly
because of the flu obviously we're seeing way more deaths because of covet 19 though just trying
to put that hospital situation into a little more context for people yeah and so i mean it's a
good question i i think i'm going to let a shared health answer any details of that there's a lot
of context that we have to put in into place now there's staffing issues right now
that we didn't have say in 2018 there are issues on um you know delayed surgeries
and and things of that so so it's not going to be essentially and you know an apple's apples
comparison on how many people were admitted this time in 2018 compared to right now but the details
of that i'll um allow shared health to answer okay i appreciate that and just as my follow-up
you know we're looking at a potentially a restriction free manitoba in just two or three
months time a lot of people may not be comfortable with that but it is the beginning of this clawing
back of restriction kind of ushering in an era where folks uh who are immunocompromised our
elderly are at higher risk of some severe outcomes uh need to take that responsibility into
their own hands and it's not being put on the general public with broader orders is that
is that kind of the era we're going into now well i mean i think that's the that's our
pre-pandemic era right we we faced many health challenges uh
pre-pandemic we unfortunately saw many deaths and severe outcomes every respiratory
virus season and the majority of those occurred in uh in unvaccinated uh people and and as well as
people with many underlying conditions those who are older those who are immune compromised so
you know when speaking about this you can never never want to downplay the tragedy of all of
these events but but moving forward we do have to find ways out of these public health restrictions
because we know we're always going to have challenges on you know some of the sickest
manitobans and so we definitely need to find ways to protect them but it can't be
to restrict the entire population forever we've been at this for two years at some
point we have to find a way out of that from cbc radio canada god love yes good afternoon uh good afternoon i
just want to raise a concern about the trackers uh with the premiere because um we
know the truckers are coming back uh there was a legislative assistant who was expelled
because of his support to the truckers and now those truckers are planning to have a sitting in
front of the winnipeg legislature hello yes we can hear you yeah yeah so uh they're planning to have
a sitting in front of the winnipeg legislature uh us from friday until you relax restrictions what
will you do premiere please obviously we want to ensure that everyone is is safe and i know that
um on the legislative grounds that uh justice will ensure that uh there's proper security
in place to ensure the the safety of of all of those individuals on the ground i do want to say
that you know to our truckers they have allowed us to be able to live through this pandemic they
have allowed the supply chain to continue and and have supplied us with our our food and our
clothing to wear and so i think we should thank them as essential service workers uh for what they
do um you know i did send out a letter uh last week i guess just explaining you know where i felt
on on many of these issues i am concerned about the mandate that the prime minister put in
place because i am concerned about supply chain issues and inflationary issues we had a different
approach in manitoba when it came to you know our provincial employees where we looked at mandat
you know either get vaccinated or or get tested there maybe is another way out of
this to ensure that we can continue that supply chain which is absolutely critical
for not just manitobans but for canadians yes but if i just have to follow up uh somebody we're
asking whether there is a map we can follow after january 22nd what will be what what is coming
next you could see the part of population who is supporting the the the truckers don't you think
that some people are tired of the restrictions is there anything are we going to lift more
restrictions in the next weeks or the next month well i'll start off with that and then hand
it over to dr russon as well for his comments i think he's already sort of stated that
this is a cautious approach to to opening up but obviously our end goal is to be able to
remove all health public health restrictions to ensure that manitobans can get back to living
normal lives so we i think we all have the same end goal in mind it's just that we need to take
perhaps a cautious approach through this to ensure um you know that our health care system
is there for manitobans when they need it from the brandon's son karen uh good
afternoon everyone and thank you for for fielding these questions uh mine is
more about enforcement because we have a company here that was uh recently fined for uh
refusing uh the masked mandate i just gotten back from a meeting with them and um yeah
just the general consensus from them and allegedly from their customer base is that they're
tired of this and but also looking at stats for fines i see a lot more have been ticketed for a
mask refusal or failing to comply so is this uh uptick in the last 30 days because more people
are refusing to wear their masks or is there just more enforcement you know i i think it's uh
it could be a combination of both i think people are generally getting you know there's coveted
fatigue out there i think we've all seen it uh in our various communities and and we we all
feel it and so but obviously when it comes to uh enforcement i know that uh you know we have
been tracking uh not just the ticketing side of it but the warning side of it as well uh for for
individuals as well so i know justice is starting to to track those numbers as well i think what's
important here today is that this is the start of the loosening of restrictions we will be
moving towards lifting all restrictions at some point when it's safe to do so and uh i think that
what we're asking for manitobans is just for for patients through this um we're everyone's tired of
of the restrictions everyone's tired of covid but we need to ensure that we also take that balanced
approach where it comes to you know making sure that we are protecting our hospital system but
also ensuring that manitobans can live their lives okay thank you for that and uh for
my follow-up just related to that a lot of people have been asking a lot of
questions it's been more than two years a lot of money has been poured into uh
restrictions and funding for support they would like to know why
their house hasn't their uh exactly how much investment has been made
for uh shoring up the health care system yeah well you know every year we have increased
the budget for for health care we have put special supports in place through the covid pandemic as
well and and will continue to do so obviously we have a challenge with surgical and diagnostic
backlogs we have set up a task force to develop a plan to get us through that and we'll continue
to work with them closely on that i know that's top of mind for manitobans so there will be
more investments that will be made over over time in the province of manitoba on friday our
council of federation uh is getting together and meeting about this very issue with respect to the
canada health transfer uh the federal government is going to have to come to the table and work
with us on this it's not something that uh matt that provinces can and territories can shoulder
alone we're all in this together and we're gonna have to ensure that we work together on it so
i appreciate uh your uh your question very much we now return to the news conference
theater a few more questions in the room thank you following up on guadalupe's
question about the truckers and the quad boy um one of the things that the mp bergen
said in in the house was that she she said that the toppling of the statues and
the defacing of the statues on canada here she said that was you know equivalent to the
protesters who were you know waving nazi flags and desecrating the the war memorial i'm just
wondering do you think that that is a fair equivalency to compare what happened on canada day
here with statues and angry you know protesters over the deaths the graves that were found at
residential schools with um the scenes of the symbols of hate that we saw on display out here
in front of the building and in ottawa with the convoy protest well we certainly understand
um you know with with residential schools the hardships that uh you know first nations have have
uh have have gone through and we want to work with them through reconciliation and ensure that we're
helping them get through this very difficult time i don't condone any kind of violent behavior
anywhere at any time and i don't think and i i believe at the time there were some first nations
leaders who came out and said you know that that we don't contone you know the behavior of of of um
you know what what happened there and so you know i i would i would agree with that uh but there's
no question that we need to work very closely with indigenous communities to help them heal through
these very difficult times and that is of course a priority that i have mentioned in our throne
speech i mentioned it in my inaugural address when i became premier um reconciliation is is
a priority for our government that wasn't her question you consider an equivalent to topple
a colonial figure statue with showing a nazi flag and i'll say it again i don't condone any
violent behavior anywhere i don't think it's right with respect you see it's equivalent i do not
condone any violent behavior what's worse though is one worse than the other do you think i believe
that questions i've answered that question a different question dr roosev premier when you had
this plan to relax restrictions on tuesday what response did you get from perry gray and the
various specialty leads in the health system well we have frequent uh discussions we uh uh
dr gray is part of incident command structure as well so we have various uh discussions um you
know about about our approach about their planning and so we don't you know discuss necessarily
the the details of the response and they're and they're varied well it's not a big detail i'm
asking for did you get a thumbs up a neutral a thumbs down like what was the general tip no
it's not as simple as that right there's various restrictions at various levels um there's
uh you know we look at various scenarios with the modeling and and we take in a number of
considerations right so the their responsibility is for the acute care system and the capacity
within there we have a much broader responsibility to overall health and manitobans and and and
things so so it's not as simple as just um thumbs up or thumbs down what happens a year
from now if we look at the we won't really get a real picture of this till we see excess
death numbers through statscat in well into 2023 so a year from now are you confident that the
approach you're taking right now is the right approach knowing what that we will see excess
death numbers next year well you know what we we have to work with the with the numbers in front
of us we know that there are um many aspects of of health and and covet is one of them covet is a
for the last two years has been a strong focus of the health care system of public health but it's
not the only factor related to health outcomes so when we when we look at the risk of covid and
talk about restrictions we really can't do that thoroughly without looking at a thoroughly what
the harms related to the restrictions were and so these are very challenging things so i
know that uh looking back in in retrospect is going to be a lot easier than having to deal
with it in in real time with small businesses on the changes to capacity because if everybody's
still at 50 but you lift the 250 maximum that really benefits big venues and small venues
really haven't changed if you're a licensed premises or your bar restaurant that sort of thing
so yeah what has changed there is actually moving from 10 o'clock to midnight to allow them to
be open longer as well we recognize obviously that there are some hardships with those those
restaurants and and and those tight in the bars and those businesses and uh obviously that's why
we're introducing further supports for them today we recognize that these are challenging times
thank you very much did you forget about that not disclosing the disposal of your
assets your housing minister in 2019 and last week when we asked well you know
you had declared them as assets and then after they were sold there was no disclosure or
statement filed saying that you had disposed of them you were housing mister at the time and
nato housing they were taught there but there were plans to devolve magical housing like can
you explain how there would be an oversight like how you can forget about 30 million dollars worth
of assets being sold well first of all manchester housing has nothing to do with this but secondly
i did disclose the disposition of those assets uh so they were disposed of the you know and they
were declared in my conflict of interest uh forms the next conflict of interest form that came that
came about in my end and disclosed as well in my meeting with the conflict of interest commissioner
what uh the issue is that i didn't file the form two i think it is within 30 days
of the disposition of those assets so to say that these assets the disposition of
these assets was not disclosed is wrong it was it wasn't they weren't it wasn't in the clerks it
is it is in my conflict of interest forms and i it wasn't for two years no it was it was absolutely
um it was there because as i filed my new conflict of interest form those assets were no longer
there and i have my meeting with the conflict of interest uh commissioner and why are
those not there because they've been sold right you know so are you required to file a
statement saying that but that's the form two which i said you know there was no form two last
week and your office confirmed that well because once it's already disclosed you can't go back
and file another form it's already disclosed as wrong it was an oversight and it would be
disclosed immediately doctor cereal do you want to answer one more about modeling the way that people
want you guys to go oh we can okay no problem you
