After weeks of pressure, the Yukon government has changed course and abruptly declared a second state of emergency to deal with a burgeoning COVID-19 crisis.

The move seems to have caught the opposition parties somewhat by surprise – especially after a session of bickering over the COVID-19 situation during question period in the legislature on Monday.

NDP Leader Kate White told the Star this morning she is supportive of the measures, although she added the government likely could have acted sooner.

“We’re facing the highest COVID-19 rates ever, both here in the Yukon and in Canada,” she said. “It’s a needed measure.”

“Was announcing it on a Monday evening over the Internet the best idea? Perhaps not.”

White noted she has been increasingly critical of the competence of communications from the government, this being yet another example.

“Communications have been very hard,” White told reporters on Monday.

The evening announcement of the reimposed state of emergency came only hours after NDP MLA Emily Tredger had peppered the government with questions about the explosion of COVID-19 cases and the powers of the public health authorities to deal with it.

“So, COVID cases are spreading across the Yukon,” Tredger said. “It has gotten so bad that the chief medical officer of health has — and I quote: ‘… confirmed there is now widespread community transmission.’ Every day, we have new public exposure notices on planes, in shops, at restaurants and bars, and, as my colleague just pointed out, in so many Yukon schools.”

“The Yukon fourth wave is still in full swing, and yet we are the only jurisdiction in Canada without a mask mandate,” Tredger told the house.

“Masks are one of the easiest defences against COVID-19. They protect everyone. From the vaccine-hesitant to children under 12, masks work. How many more cases will it take for this government to bring back the mask mandate?”

Premier Sandy Silver leapt to his feet to answer that question.

“We will continue to do what we have done since the beginning, which is to take the recommendations from the public health officials,” the premier said.

“We heard from the acting chief medical officer of health (Dr. Catherine Elliott) last week on the full round of different measures that are being recommended from the chief medical officer.

“At that time, she was confident in her recommendations. I hope that the Yukon NDP are also confident with the chief medical officer of health’s recommendations,” Silver added.

“Now, we do know that there has been more clusters and more cases. We do know from Forging Ahead — that documentation talked about how we need to be stood up quickly and we need to focus in on particular communities if we need to, but we also need to act based on science.

“I’ll be meeting with the chief medical officer of health this (Monday) afternoon and I will absolutely bring up the questions from the members opposite at that time.

“But again, we have a chief medical office that has been keeping up with NACI recommendations and also following other jurisdictions’ epidemiology and different testing methodologies in all other jurisdictions,” Silver said.

“We are very confident in the office’s approach when it comes to testing.”

Tredger refused to be budged from her line of questioning.

“Well, we are all talking about the chief medical officer of health, but since August, power has actually been stripped from the CMOH,” she said. Without the Civil Emergency Measures Act, orders on COVID-19 come from the government, not from public health experts,” Tredger said.

“Sometimes the CMOH can strongly recommend, like when it comes to mask wearing; other times, she can mandate, like self-isolation, but that is because the chief medical officer of health does not have broad ordering powers under the Public Health and Safety Act, only limited ones.

“Will this Liberal government give the chief medical officer of health the power to mandate broad public health orders needed to manage COVID-19?” Tredger asked.

Silver fired back.

“I’ll have to disagree with the member opposite,” he said. The chief medical officer of health has those abilities now with the Public Health and Safety Act. So, that is absolutely not the case.

“Again, with the Civil Emergency Measures Act, when necessary, the government would be in a position to invoke that act immediately. Again, the premise of the question is not necessarily the case.

“I don’t know why the members opposite think that the chief medical officer has been stripped of any powers,” added the premier.

“What we need right now is all political parties to 100-per-cent back the medical advice that we are getting from this office.”

Tredger recalled that “last week in the house, we heard that the chief medical officer of health did not have the power to institute a broad mask mandate; today we are told that she does.

“I would hope that the government is a little clearer internally than they are at communicating externally,” she said.

“Frankly, because the chief medical officer of health’s recommendations are not made public, we only have access to what the government is saying. We are left with second-hand information,” Tredger noted.

“Right now, Yukoners are facing the worst rates of COVID-19 transmission to date, yet the CMOH has less power than ever since the start of this pandemic. On top of this, all of the advice from the CMOH goes through the government first.

“Public health advice should be just that — public. We need to hear directly from the experts. Yukoners need orders directly from the chief medical officer of health.

“Will this government make all recommendations from the chief medical officer of health public?” Tredger asked.

“We will continue to take in all of the recommendations with the rationale from the chief medical officer of health as the Yukon Party and the NDP pick and choose which ones they will support,” Silver said.

“But we will continue with that method, and we will keep people updated as we have with these press conferences.”

Afterward, White wasn’t happy with that response.

“What I will see say is that is almost every other jurisdiction in Canada, the recommendations of the medical officers of health are made public,” she said.

“It’s not done by a press conference held on a Friday. We don’t know what else has been talked about because we get it through the filter of government.

“Let’s just make all of those recommendations public.”

White said at that time that she “wasn’t sure if the Yukon should go back under a state of emergency.

“It’s a great question,” she said. “If the Yukon government continues to say it follows the science, we’re the only jurisdiction in Canada that doesn’t have mandatory masking. So what science do they have the rest of Canada doesn’t?” White asked.

Tim Kucharuk, the press secretary for the Yukon Party, said this morning, “We are disappointed to see the dramatic rise in case numbers in Yukon, and particularly concerned about the rising case numbers among students in Yukon schools.

“While we continue to seek more information from the government about the data that has informed this decision, and more transparency on the recommendations from the CMOH, we appreciate the current situation requires the government to act and to bring in new measures,” Kucharuk added.

“As always, we encourage Yukoners to follow the guidelines and rules put in place, and we encourage all Yukoners who are eligible to get vaccinated.”