Manning urges federal Conservatives to weaponize his Alberta COVID response report

The chair of a taxpayer-funded panel reviewing Alberta’s COVID-19 response is urging the federal Conservatives to weaponize his findings in the next election against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s governing coalition.

Preston Manning, the former head of the Reform Party, made the pitch last week in an email sent to Conservative MPs on the same day the report from the panel he chaired was published.

In the email, dated Nov. 15, Manning wrote, “If the response of the Liberal/NDP coalition to the 2020-2023 COVID crisis should become an election issue in 2024, there may be some material in this report that could be used by the CPC to say `what should have been done to cope with the COVID crisis and what should be done to cope with future public emergencies.”’

He added, “Some of its content may also be useful in attacking the record of the Liberal/NDP coalition in this area.”

In the email, Manning also congratulates the federal Conservatives on recent upticks in polling, adding “with any luck and some hard work you should be in government next year.”

Manning also encouraged a “closer practical relationship” between Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservatives and the federal Conservatives to promote shared interests, adding “Everybody benefits, especially Alberta.”

In a statement Monday, Manning drew a distinction between his time on the panel and off it.

“The Public Health Emergencies Governance Review Panel was a non-partisan panel tasked with providing advice to the Government of Alberta to improve Alberta’s response to future public health emergencies,” wrote Manning.

His comments meshed with comments by Danielle Smith during the COVID-19 pandemic when she, too, publicly questioned the efficacy of rules and gathering restrictions, particularly when compared with the potential for long-term harms to mental and physical well-being.

Smith at that time questioned the mainstream science approach to the pandemic and endorsed debunked COVID-19 treatments, such as horse dewormer ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. |Read more https://globalnews.ca/news/10104439/alberta-covid-preston-manning-federal-conservatives/| globalnews.ca/news/10104439/al…

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