Canadian Press file photo

By Shaun Penner

Cases continue spike

Public health and personal freedoms: Kenney walks tight rope with new COVID-19 restrictions

Nov 24, 2020 | 7:51 PM

As new restrictions focused around public health come into force in Alberta, Premier Jason Kenney was blunt in saying he never wanted the COVID-19 situation in the province to get to this point, but now is time to act.

Kenney spoke publicly for the first time in nearly two weeks Tuesday afternoon, where he announced new public health restrictions province-wide to curb the sharp rise in COVID-19 cases, and the hospitalizations and deaths that have come along with that rise.

The Premier spoke candidly of the approximate eight hour meeting he and his fellow COVID-19 cabinet committee members engaged in with Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, over what the next steps should be following another day of over 1,000 new daily cases.

As his UCP government has done since the spring, Kenney says they have fought off calls for a complete “lockdown” of society in Alberta because of the other implications those full restrictions could have, such as the deterioration of the mental health of Albertans and the overall health of the provincial economy.

“It would also be an unprecedented violation of fundamental, constitutionally protected rights and freedoms. Instead, we focused on targeted measures aimed at places where the data clearly showed that COVID-19 was spreading.”

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Social gatherings are COVID-19 problem #1 in Alberta

With that, Kenney says he and the province have tried to strike a thoughtful and balanced approach; one based on targeted measures that does not call for a full stoppage of society and the economy, but rather prohibit activities that are major vectors of transmission of the novel coronavirus.

That starts with the banning of all indoor social gatherings, including those held in private residences.

“Let me be absolutely clear about this: social gatherings are the biggest problem,” said Kenney, pointing to the approximate 40 per cent of active cases in the province linked to uncontrolled social settings.

“Many people may think that a family dinner or get together with friends is no big deal. It’s just normal and we don’t imagine when we gather with family that people would be transmitting a virus like this.

“But it is the key reason why COVID-19 is winning.”

Full ‘lockdown’ not the first step to be taken

Though many are displeased to hear of even more restrictive measures being implemented by the government, whether through COVID-19 fatigue or otherwise, Kenney says a full shutdown is also not the way to go at this point.

“By the way,” Kenney chuckled. “In so much of the debate, where have we forgotten about the Charter of Rights and Freedoms? Since when should governments start with an impairment of fundamental, charter protected rights and freedoms, rather than engage in such an impairment as a last and final resort?”

But don’t ignore the new rules, he says…

As for enforcement of the new measures, Kenney did stress that those who try to defy the new public health orders can be fined, with penalties starting at $1,000 per ticketed offence, and a cost of up to $100,000 through the courts.

Kenney adds that the province will be looking at granting additional powers to level one and two peace officers in the province to help enforce the new measures, alongside the RCMP.

“This is a freedom-loving province. I get all of that,” remarked Kenney. “But this is really clear, the message we are sending, today, which is if you’re holding indoor social events, they are now illegal.

“That’s pretty astonishing. And those rules will be enforced to our greatest ability.”

Don’t like public health restrictions?

Speaking to anyone who feels unhappy with these restrictions, or feels no government restrictions are necessary to fight the pandemic; Kenney offered a solution.

“It’s not good enough to complain. You tell us: How are we going to ensure timely access to health services for people who need them, if the hospitals get crowded out with a growing number of COVID patients?

“If there is somebody with a way of doing that without restrictions, I’d like to know what it is. Because God knows we’ve been searching for that.”

Keeping businesses open: a lesson from the past

The new measures, most of which are effective as of now, also include restrictions on indoor dining at restaurants, bars and lounges, which include limiting patrons to a table of no more than six, none of whom can be from outside your immediate household.

There are also capacity limits of 25 per cent of fire code allowance for all retail stores in areas under an “enhanced” watch status by the province, which includes the City and County of Grande Prairie, the MD of Greenview and the MD of Peace (Peace River).

Though some have called for a full shutdown of non-essential businesses, Kenney said the government has learned from the experience at the start of the pandemic, when many businesses were forced to close.

“This government made, I think, a grave mistake in the spring, when we made frankly a stupidly arbitrary distinction between essential and non-essential retail businesses, that had the unintended consequence of allowing Walmarts and Costcos to sell darn near everything because they have a grocery section.”

Kenney referenced speaking with a business owner in rural Alberta, who was forced to shutter his business at the end of March due to provincial restrictions coming down.

“100 per cent of their business went to the big U.S. owned box store down the street, or of course online, for 10 weeks, because of that frankly stupid mistake we made.

“For which, I apologize.”

The measures, the province says, will be in place for a minimum of three weeks. However, that could be longer.

When asked what metrics the government and health officials are looking at to trigger the removal of these restrictions, Kenney says the R value (or the number of people that one infected person passes the virus on to, on average) drops below one.

“That’s the minimum metric goal that we must achieve by December 15.”

Currently, Edmonton and Calgary, the hardest hit regions of the province with COVID-19 infections, both have R values over one.

A detailed list of new public health measures announced Tuesday can be found here.