Mayor Ted Clugston says he is unlikely to support a city-mandated mask bylaw, which is the same stance he took in December when council enacted a 90-day rule.--NEWS FILE PHOTO
cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant
Medicine Hat city council will discuss whether to bring in a local mask bylaw to help address extremely high COVID cases and a rate of new infections that isn’t slowing down.
Mayor Ted Clugston told the News on Thursday he has heard “enough” support for a formal debate among council members, but says he wasn’t sure a majority would support a new masking mandate.
“I’ve committed to council that we will discuss it on Tuesday,” said Clugston, who opposed a mask bylaw put in place last fall and more recently has reiterated his stance that the province, not the city, should be responsible for such matters. “We’ll see what happens (at council).”
The item will come up in council’s closed session on Tuesday afternoon after the Labour Day holiday on Monday. It could be brought forward to the open portion that evening as either a discussion item or in the form of a motion, depending on the level of support from the nine council members.
Council passed a local bylaw in late 2020 with 6-3 support when cases were one quarter what they are now. That came into effect days before the province announced similar measures.
Coun. Julie Friesen said Thursday she would prefer provincial action, but the local situation is serious.
It puts children, who are not yet approved to receive the vaccine, as risk, she says, as well as any Hatter “vaccinated or not” who has a non-COVID medical emergency and needs health-care resources.
“No one wants a mask bylaw, but we should be doing whatever we can to protect Medicine Hatters until we can stop this really alarming rise in cases,” she said.
Doctors told the News this week the ICU is operating over capacity at times with COVID patients.
New cases are still causing the number to rise, even as cases are resolved, and has grown to a local high of 553 on Thursday, 28 more than the previous day.
One in five of the 2,500 local COVID cases since March 2020 are active right now.
A total of 1,938 had recovered and 30 people had died, including six in the last nine days.
Local health officials told the News they are seeing more cases, more severe cases and more hospitalizations in general, and specifically among unvaccinated population, which makes up about 40 per cent of Medicine Hatters.
The province and local doctors have said inoculation is the best way to avoid becoming seriously ill or spreading the virus.
One city council member speaking off the record said the issue is perplexing. Council or the province could install a mask bylaw to lower cases, but if resistance to getting a vaccine persists, cases would be added eventually again.
“It becomes a yo-yo, so what do you do?” the person said.
Clugston as well said he did not support the initial mask bylaw in late 2020 and implied increased vaccination was a better solution.
“I didn’t vote for (a bylaw) when we didn’t have a vaccine, and now that we have a vaccine, I’d be very unlikely to support it,” he said.
Other councillors told the News this week they wanted the issue brought up and a mask bylaw could prevent cases.
“I think it’s a debate worth having,” said Coun. Brian Varga. “If I have to wear a mask, I do. What’s the big deal?”
Coun. Kris Samraj said he is inclined against local measures because cities are less effective than health officials, especially if there is “dissonance” between provincial government and health officials.
“It could lead to chaos if everybody is stepping in,” he said, saying there’s no question masks are scientifically proven effective to a large degree.
When cases rose sharply last November, a majority of councillors pushed the mayor to call a special meeting to discuss the measure rather than waiting another week for a regular council meeting.
Eventually, the bylaw passed by a 6-3 count with Clugston, and councillors Kris Samraj and Jim Turner voting against.
Couns. Friesen, Varga, Robert Dumanowski, Darren Hirsch, Phil Turnbull and Jamie McIntosh were in favour.
Turner said at the time – before vaccines were available in Canada – it was important to reach herd immunity.
Samraj stated he objected to what should have been a provincial issue being handled at the municipal level.
Clugston reiterated his long-held stance that he hoped Medicine Hat could keep cases low with voluntary action and without restrictions.
It included an expiry date in March 2021, which was allowed to pass without any action as council members said an in-place provincial mandate (enacted days after the vote in Medicine Hat) made local legislation redundant.
