(March 17, 2021) – PC Leader Ches Crosbie says it’s clear now that Andrew Furey misled the public when he referred to “probabilistic modeling” used to inform the call of the 2021 election.

On February 9, the Premier said he referenced “probabilistic modeling” when deciding to call the election, but at today’s COVID-19 update Dr. Proton Rahman said no such modeling was possible.
“Andrew Furey said he looked at modeling ahead of the election, yet Dr. Rahman says no such models existed. It’s clear the Premier misled the public during the February 9 update,” said Crosbie.
“The Premier can’t seem to get his story straight. How can he claim to have the moral authority to govern if he’s misleading the public during critical COVID-19 updates?”

Instead, Furey said at Wednesday’s briefing that he personally looked at COVID -19 data from across the country to make his decision and assigned his own probability to the scenarios facing the province.

According to the federal government’s national COVID-19 data, the single highest case count across the country occurred in the days leading up to the call of the election.

“If Andrew Furey was only looking at the public data, then it’s clear he shouldn’t have called the election when he did. The second-wave of COVID-19 was well under way across the country, yet the Premier still decided now was a good time to hold the election,” said Crosbie.

“The Premier’s claim that all the data is already public is itself troubling, as Radio Canada’s Access to Information request showed there were documents to disclose. If no modeling was possible, what document is the Premier claiming secrecy for?”

Crosbie will hold a media availability at 3:00pm island time via Zoom. Media are asked to request an invitation to the Zoom conference.

Contacts:

David Maher

Director of Communications

(p) (709) 769-2216

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