COVID-19: Saskatoon Investigating Harvest Size Limits Because Province Won’t – Saskatoon | The Canadian News

Saskatoon city councilors want to know if they can implement collection size limits to stop the spread of COVID-19, because the Saskatchewan government will not.

“This is unprecedented. It is much better for the provincial government to implement meeting sizes, ”said Mayor Charlie Clark.

“The fact that we are the only jurisdiction that does not have collection size restrictions, including Alberta, does not make sense to me.”

Clark proposed a motion, during Monday’s governance and priorities committee meeting, that mandates the city administration to investigate whether and how the city can impose meeting size restrictions.

It was approved with seven votes in favor and four against.

Clark had previously written to Saskatchewan Health Minister Paul Merriman on October 1 asking for a public health order to limit the size of the meetings. On October 7, the city received the answer.

“The province has indicated that they will not implement (collection size restrictions) at this time,” said Pamela Goulden-McLeod, the city’s director of emergency operations.

He then added “the (city’s COVID-19 response) framework and medical health officials indicate that there is still a requirement to gather restrictions in Saskatoon.”

The framework, which the council adopted in September, is a tiered ranking of the threat COVID-19 poses to residents, as determined by medical health officials at the Saskatchewan Health Authority. They have determined that the disease currently poses a high risk, and therefore the framework directs the city to ask the provincial government for a limit on the size of collections.

It does not provide any guidance on what to do if the provincial government does not listen.

In response to a question from Coun. Sarina Gersher, Goulden-McLeod clarified the advice from health officials applied to the city in general and that they did not go into detail about whether it would only apply to city facilities.

Soon after, the committee interrupted City Attorney Cindy Yelland’s private legal advice for nearly 20 minutes.

Coun. Bev Dubois appeared to refer to the council during the debate, when he stated, “We heard from the city attorney that no other municipality, that I know of, in Canada, has passed such a statute and had it concur or pass. by the provincial government “.

Ward 10 Coun. Zach Jeffries responded by saying that other cities are not dealing with the problem because they don’t have to.

“We have the worst situation and zero orientation,” he said, referring to the provincial government.

“And that is why no other municipality in Canada has to take any action or have these discussions, because they are not forced to do so because of the abdication of leadership.”

Troy Davies of Ward 4 and Randy Donauer of Ward 5 stated that they did not support the motion because they believed that voting on it would confuse residents about the role and authority the city has versus the provincial authority.

“We have no responsibility for health, the province does, like it or not,” said Donauer.

And if we agree with their decisions or not. It is up to the minister of health to do these things. “

The motion passed with seven votes to four. Coun. Hill and Dubois also voted against.

Management will report at a later date.

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