With the latest round of public health restrictions that were announced Friday, questions have come up about some aspects.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced the restrictions that include shutting down playgrounds and outdoor recreation sites like basketball and tennis courts, limiting outdoor gatherings to only people from one household and giving police and by-law officers enhanced enforcement powers.
Under the new restrictions, police and by-law officers can now stop any individual or vehicle at random and require anyone to provide their address and a reason as to why they aren’t home. The exceptions include going to or from work, getting essentials and accessing healthcare.
A community of people have been online decrying the new enforcement powers online.
Bay of Quinte MPP Todd Smith explained why the enforcement powers were included in the restrictions.
“The fact of the matter is, people just weren’t following the rules that were laid out for public health and safety. Our hospitals are being overrun, our front line healthcare workers are very, very stressed and our ICUs are actually the highest they’ve ever been. We had to do something to ensure that people knew that they needed to follow all these rules. So all that we’ve done is we’ve kept the same rules in place and then added a layer of enforcement to it to make people know that this is serious.”
To the people decrying the enforcement rules, Smith said they simply need to follow the rules and they won’t have to worry about it, adding that most people in the Bay of Quinte have been vigilant.
Friday afternoon there was a rally in Belleville’s Zwick’s park, hosted by Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston independent MPP Randy Hillier, to protest the provincial lockdowns. The rally was attended by as many as 200 people, many of whom were not from the Bay of Quinte area. MPP Smith called the actions “discouraging”.
“It’s discouraging to see the kind of behaviour that was taking place yesterday by 100 people or so at Zwick’s park in downtown Belleville. It’s those kind of super-spreader events that will keep us in these kinds of lockdowns and restrictions for many, many months to come. That’s a small percentage of the people, I get that, and it was very discouraging to see that.”
To people struggling with the latest enacting of restrictions, Smith offered this.
“I know it’s been hard. It’s been a long 13 months. This isn’t just Ontario that’s facing this, it’s really most of Canada and a lot of jurisdictions south of the border and around the world that are dealing with these kinds of restrictions. We’ve got to get through this. This is hopefully the worst of it and over the next couple of weeks we just have to bear down, follow the rules, we’ll get through this and have some semblance of a normal summer in the Quinte region.”
See more on the province’s announcement here.
