It was a stern warning.

On Saturday, Federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu admonished Canadians who were still defying self-isolation restrictions, saying that failure to obey may put Canadians' civil liberties in jeopardy by forcing politicians and governments to take stronger measures.

"It makes governments have to look at more and more stringent measures to actually contain people in their own homes, our freedoms around the measures that we're taking right now depend on people taking them seriously."

It's a line in the sand that most politicians try to avoid coming near, as in some ways the phrase cuts to the very quick of what it means to be Canadian.

With 66 cases and climbing steadily, Premier Scott Moe is no stranger to introducing strong measures, late last week authorizing law enforcement to act on the edicts of the Public Health Authorities no differently than they would any other law.

Closing all but essential businesses and enforcing physical distancing by mandating enforced isolation for all are still not measures that are on the table in the province, but his previous concerns with individuals not taking the threat of COVID-19 seriously does not preclude those measures in the future.

In her remarks, it's clear that Hajdu had no qualms in playing the civil liberties card to cajole Canadians into taking the pandemic seriously, but Scott Moe was more cautious in his wording.

When asked at a press conference on Monday whether he was concerned about the danger to civil liberties with further restrictions, he was non-committal, saying only that he was concerned about a number of things; not only of civil liberties.

"I'm also concerned how the decisions that we're making today and the impact they're going to have on the general state of the economy and what that starting point is going to look like when we get on the backside of this curve and what opportunity we're all going to have as people that are employed in this province. The opportunity that we're going to have to go back to a place of employment when we find our way through this pandemic."

He stressed that his first priority was to flatten the curve so that our healthcare system can manage what is going to be hitting it in the weeks and months ahead.

"Alongside that," he added, "we're trying to balance that with respecting individual civil liberties, people's civil liberties as well as those of society. But also trying to balance that with the impact we're having on the economy."

That appears to be the line in the sand for Premier Scott Moe; how restrictive does he get in order to not only fight the current virus but ensure that the province's economy can recover when that virus finally wanes.

As more cases of COVID-19 continue to appear in the province with a speed that has been called unprecedented by the province's Chief Medical Health Officer, residents will likely not have to wait long for an answer.