O’Toole evades questions about Alberta’s response to COVID surge

SAINT JOHN, N.B. — Alberta Premier Jason Kenney proved an important ally during Erin O’Toole’s race to lead Canada’s Conservatives, but on Thursday the Tory leader avoided even uttering his name while fielding questions about the province’s dire COVID-19 situation.

Rising case numbers and overstretched intensive care units pushed Alberta’s United Conservative government on Wednesday to reintroduce restrictions on social gatherings and make the desperate ask from other provinces to offer up more beds and staff because they may soon run out.

Those decisions, coupled with an admission from Kenney he was wrong to lift virtually all health restrictions over the summer and reject a vaccine passport system, punctuated the final stretch of the Sept. 20 election campaign, where the Liberals and Conservatives are locked in a narrow fight.

The Liberals have seized on Alberta’s unfolding crisis, which has pushed the province’s hospital system to the brink of collapse, to attack O’Toole’s approach to the pandemic, including his opposition to mandatory vaccinations. O’Toole encourages people, including his own candidates to get vaccinated, but similar to Kenney, says he ultimately respects an individual’s ability to make their own health choices.

Liberal candidates have been circulating images from when Kenney endorsed O’Toole during last summer’s Conservative leadership race, and they have been pointing to how at one point, O’Toole applauded Alberta’s contact tracing efforts during the first wave of the pandemic.

Among those is George Chahal, who’s running to win back Calgary Skyview for Trudeau from the Conservatives and has focused his campaign strategy on targeting Kenney with the line: “Erin O’Toole and Jason Kenney are cut from the same cloth.”

Unlike Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, who has said he felt bad for people in Alberta and its neighbour Saskatchewan — which has also seen a rise in cases and on Thursday reinstated a mask mandate and unveiled a vaccine passport system — the Tory leader has stayed quiet on the Kenney government’s response in subsequent waves.

“I’ve consistently said that we will work with the provinces and respect the decisions they make with respect to fighting the Delta variant wave of COVID,” O’Toole said during a campaign stop Thursday morning at a curling rink in Saint John, N.B.

“Each province [is] putting their best decisions forward for the health and economic stability of their provinces, from one coast to another.”

The federal Tory leader refused to say who he thought has done a better job managing the pandemic, Kenney or Trudeau. Last fall, O’Toole gave a clearer answer when he said he felt Kenney had. Both men served together in former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper’s cabinet. This past spring, O’Toole also came to his former colleague’s defence when the United Conservative premier faced a small caucus revolt, in part over his management of the pandemic.

O’Toole said Thursday he had not spoken with Kenney since the Alberta premier announced he would reimpose COVID-19 restrictions.