CALEB NICKERSON
PONTIAC Dec 23, 2020
Several local officials are seeing red in response to the provincial government’s last minute changes to public health guidelines.
The changes, which moved the Pontiac into a red zone along with the rest of the Outaouais, were announced at a press conference by Premier François Legault in the late afternoon of Dec. 15 and came into effect on Dec. 17.
The changes imposed . . .
further restrictions on gatherings and also meant the closure of non-essential businesses, as well as an extension of school holidays.
At the MRC Pontiac council meeting on Dec. 16, Shawville Mayor Sandra Murray expressed her discontent with the new rules.
“We did so well with our numbers, [Legault] had no right to put us in the red zone with the numbers we had and I would like a resolution sent from the MRC Pontiac to the premier, with copies going to the health minister and to André Fortin, [about] how disappointed we are with the way they did it and that it’s not fair,” she said. “We worked so hard to keep our numbers low and this is what they do. We should have all been out in the bar partying instead of staying home and wearing our masks and keeping our distance.”
Council passed the resolution unanimously. Warden Jane Toller said that she had been fielding calls from the regional media earlier in the day on Dec. 15 about how the Pontiac was the only MRC remaining in the orange. She said she was blindsided by the announcement that came later that day.
“Yesterday, [Fort Coulonge] Mayor [Debbie] Laporte and I were approached by media and they wanted to know our secret for success for our low numbers was,” she said. “We both said it was the hard work of the people of the Pontiac and good communication about the need for vigilance. Yesterday afternoon, we had no previous knowledge. I got a phone call from the media in the Gatineau area saying that at 5 o clock, I should listen to the premier.”
Even Pontiac MNA André Fortin said that he was caught off-guard, speaking to The Equity the day after the changes.
“We had worked with Public Health Outaouais … because we’d heard that there was a possibility that the MRC Vallée de la Gatineau and Papineau would be switching over to a red zone, given their increased number of cases,” he said. “I wanted to make sure that the Pontiac MRC, given its number of cases, which hasn’t significantly changed over the past days and weeks, would remain in orange. When they did make the change for the other two MRCs [on Dec. 14], ours remained in orange, so I was satisfied up to that point, I figured we’d won the argument.
“Quite frankly, at this point I’m looking for explanations as to the public health data behind it,” he continued. “There may well be valid reasons behind it, but they haven’t been explained to us clearly. We don’t know if it’s a political decision or a public health decision and given the interactions that we’ve had with Public Health Outaouais and the fact that one day prior to the premier’s announcement, they agreed to keep us in orange, I was more than a bit surprised by the premier’s actions.”
Fortin said that the short notice given by the government was frustrating and added that it caused real damage, and mirrored similar last-minute changes to guidelines that occurred earlier in the pandemic.
“This is the second time in the Outaouais region that we’ve had one day to adapt to new rules,” he said. “It would have been well-advised to give people a bit more advanced notice. Some regions got much more notice the first time around than we did here in the Outaouais, and businesses do suffer because of it. They aren’t able to clear inventory as easily, they aren’t able to plan their human resources as efficiently, so again, government has to realize that when they make decisions like this that may well be in the best interest of public health, they do have an impact and having a little bit of advanced notice or more planning given to business owners would have been appropriate.”
Despite his displeasure with how the changes were rolled out, Fortin encouraged the general population to follow the rules and added that the fines for non-compliance were fairly hefty. He added that the government had not indicated that they would be doing police checks at regional borders, as they had deemed it to not be effective.
“Even if the rules are sometimes hard to understand, even if they seem contradictory, even if they do raise some questions, it is important to follow the rules and I would encourage everybody to do that at Christmas,” he said.
