Alberta MLA wants province to follow through on COVID-19 report recommendations 'immediately'

An Alberta MLA who hosted a town hall meeting last spring which aimed to persuade the government to end COVID mRNA vaccines for children said he would like to see his government follow through on recommendations made in the newly released provincial COVID-19 task force report. 

Eric Bouchard, the UCP MLA for Calgary-Lougheed, said the findings of the report were "shocking" and that the information it presents to the public is "long overdue." 

"I think it's up to cabinet now to follow the leadership of the premier and immediately activate Dr. Davidson's recommendations, starting with halting mRNA vaccinations for children, and putting a pause on the vaccinations for children in Alberta until we have more information," Bouchard told CBC News on Monday. 

The $2-million dollar report, which was posted to the Alberta government's website Friday, looked into how data and information informed the province's COVID-19 response.

It was led by Dr. Gary Davidson, the former chief of emergency medicine at the Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre. 

It was Bouchard who posted news of the report's completion on social media Friday. He touted the report as bringing Alberta "one step closer to the truth."

In a subsequent post, which received hundreds of "likes" on X, formerly known as Twitter, Bouchard said he is committed to working with Albertans to "ensure that the historical pain caused by the response to COVID-19 does not repeat."

Underpinning the 269-page document are a number of statements — that doctors argue go against medical and scientific consensus — criticizing the use of vaccines and a range of other pandemic protections.

Among its key recommendations are calls for the provincial government to "immediately halt" the use of all COVID-19 vaccines without "full disclosure" of potential risks and to bar healthy children and teenagers from getting COVID shots.

Bouchard said he thinks the report has been received favourably by his constituency and that he's looking forward to discussing its findings. He added that he hasn't yet read the full report. 

"I support more conversation. We need to discuss the data that's presented rather than just saying it's anti-science." 

The Calgary MLA wasn't the only politician reacting to the release of the report on Monday.

Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi called a news conference to say, among other things, that the report shows the premier doesn't mind "wasting taxpayer money," and that implementing the report's findings would remove medical choice from Albertans. 

"There's only two reasons that the province could put out something so shocking. The first is that [the premier] is simply pandering to her extremist base and not planning on doing anything about it. The second is she's planning on doing something about it," he said. 

"[This report] would take away life-saving vaccines from Alberta citizens … this is an authoritarian document," he said. 

Nenshi also criticized the timing of the government's release of the report. 

"This government loves the Friday afternoon trash dump of news. You know, they do this all the time," he said. 

"They wanted to quietly release it for one of two reasons. Either they're embarrassed by it — they finally found shame. Or they're planning on implementing it and they didn't want anyone to know. Both are bad answers." 

A spokesperson for the health minister told CBC News the provincial government received the interim report in August, for initial review, and a final report was received in December.

Asked whether the province intends to follow through on any of the recommendations found in the report, specifically to end the use of COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children and teens, the spokesperson said government is reviewing the report and that no decisions based on its findings have been made. 

No press release or public discussion

Alberta's former chief medical officer of health, Dr. James Talbot, said that typically, reports of this nature are released alongside a press release and are accompanied by public discussion of the findings. 

The fact that this report's release lacked either of those things points to several possibilities from the government's perspective, he added. 

"One [reason] is that they recognize how bad it is and they would prefer not to have a public discussion of how bad it is.… I think [another reason] is that they just want this to go away because they don't want to have a discussion about whether it was good value for money."  

Talbot said the province's Ministry of Health collects key vaccine statistics, and he would like to see them released in order to put an end to the discussion about whether COVID vaccines are safe. 

"This isn't a matter of theory anymore, right? The ministry knows which Albertans and how many got immunized. They know what happened to them afterwards. Did they end up getting strange diseases and being diagnosed and admitted to hospital? Or did they end up getting protected and then were able to stay out of the hospital?" said Talbot.

"The ministry has all the data it needs to comment on the safety of the vaccine using 'made in Alberta' data. And so why they wouldn't put this to rest is beyond me."