Smith appoints Preston Manning as committee chair to review COVID-19 response

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has appointed former Reform Party leader Preston Manning to chair a review committee on the COVID-19 response in the province.

The province says the review panel will invite “experts and the public” to share their views on how the UCP government can respond to health emergencies in the future.

It says this will be done to ensure mitigation of impacts on “the social well-being, mental health, civil liberties, and livelihoods of Albertans.”

He will be paid $253,000 as the chair, and the total budget for the panel is $2 million.

“There are valuable lessons we learned from the Alberta government’s response to the COVID-19 public health emergency,” Smith said in a statement Thursday.

“It’s important that we apply those lessons to strengthen our management of future public health crises, and the panel’s recommendations will be key in doing so.”

Manning will make recommendations to the premier for the membership of the panel in “the coming months,” and it will provide a final report on Nov. 15.

“It’s crucial that we take the opportunity to review the province’s COVID-19 response and examine whether and how that approach can be improved in future health emergencies. I look forward to working with my fellow panellists and hearing from Albertans about how the province can best achieve this objective,” Manning said in a statement.

The panel will consider and balance factors in an overall public health crisis, including public health information, mental health and wellness, child and student mental health and education, health professionals’ practice standards, “effective implementation of emergency measures,” protection of rights and freedoms, economic and financial effects, and employment standards.

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Manning announced the start of a National Citizens Inquiry into Canada’s COVID-19 measures in November 2022.

He said the government intervention impacted the physical and mental well-being of Canadians, along with their civil liberties, fundamental freedoms, livelihoods, and overall social and economic well-being.

“The magnitude of these interventions demands a comprehensive, transparent, and objective inquiry into the appropriateness and efficacy of the measures imposed,” said Manning in a statement released in November. “We need to determine what worked and what didn’t and identify how we can respond better in the future.”

A petition was released, and to this date, over 46,000 people signed up.

The statement says the inquiry will be released in early 2023.

The office of the premier has not responded to a request for comment. Meantime, The Canadian Press reports that Manning will step aside from his role at the National Citizens Inquiry to avoid any conflict of interest.

Duane Bratt, political scientist at Mount Royal University, says an inquiry should be made on the “once in a century” pandemic but that won’t be the case with the Manning inquiry as the “die has been cast.”

“He is specifically looking at the harm caused by federal and provincial COVID restrictions. This is in the mandate that [Manning] was given,” Bratt said.

“This is a conclusion that has already been reached by the Smith government and Preston Manning, and his job is to document and detail all of the evidence, cherry-pick that evidence to show the harms that were caused, and ignore the saving of lives, the saving of the healthcare system, etc., which was the rationale for COVID restriction.”

Bratt says an example of an inquiry would be the Emergencies Act inquiry, which involved testimony from convoy protestors and leaders, members of the Ontario police, the federal cabinet, and Prime Minister Trudeau.

“That’s the way that you do an inquiry, not what Manning has been given, where he’s being given a mandate saying ‘This is the conclusion you’re going to reach. Go and find the evidence for that.'”

Bratt says Smith “wants to re-litigate COVID. This was a major driving force of how she became leader.”

Both the premier and Manning have been critical of COVID-19 health restrictions, which include masking, gathering rules, and vaccine mandates.

Smith has criticized Dr. Deena Hinshaw, the former chief medical officer of health, and the Alberta Health Services board for failing to provide advice and help prepare for the pandemic, which she says forced the government to impose health restrictions and vaccine mandates.

After she took office in October, she replaced Hinshaw and the board.

Recently, she has been under fire for comments about speaking with Crown prosecutors on COVID-19 cases. Smith has made promises to pardon individuals accused of violating pandemic measures, which she has backed away from.

In October, the premier said she was seeking legal advice on whether she could grant pardons for those fined for non-criminal violations.

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The provincial NDP says the appointment of Manning is “politically-motivated” and is not intended to improve health care.

“Over a quarter of a million dollars is a lot of Albertans’ money to hire someone to chair a committee that has obviously been struck for political gain,” said David Shepherd, Alberta NDP Health Critic, in a statement.

“I know families who are struggling to pay their utility bills and their car insurance will ask why this is how their tax dollars are being spent, and health-care workers will be wondering why our ambulances and hospitals are starved for resources.”

He says this is a call to cement Smith’s support with the “far right.”

A review that the UCP requested was made to KPMG, which cost the government $475,000. The report was released in Aug. 2021, and the NDP says it showed “clear evidence and recommendations that the government ignored entirely.”

Albertans and experts can provide their input online.

-With files from The Canadian Press and Lisa Grant, CityNews