Manitoba’s restrictions in the middle of the pack

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This article was published 21/01/2022 (1337 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba’s public health orders related to COVID-19 are among the most stringent in Canada, Premier Heather Stefanson has often asserted.

To test this claim, the Sun scoured through each province’s current list of health orders and the penalties for breaking them.

A direct comparison shows Manitoba should not be included in the list of those with the strongest rules, though it should not be pushed to the bottom either.

Restrictions across Canada

Because of the large variation in the specifics between each province’s health rules concerning schools and the variation between individual school boards or divisions within those provinces, education is generally not included for the purposes of this analysis.

For large gatherings and events, Manitoba is mostly aligned with the other provinces in implementing an attendance capacity of 50 per cent. Its maximum limit of 250 people at these gatherings and events bests Alberta, Saskatchewan and Prince Edward Island.

However, British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador all either prevent larger scale indoor gatherings and events or have closed the venues where they could conceivably take place. Nova Scotia allows for performing arts and athletic organizations to train in limited capacities, but “competitions, in-person performances and spectators are not permitted.”

When it comes to smaller or private gatherings, Manitoba’s rules are more complex than the rest of the provinces but not always more strict.

In Manitoba, indoor private gatherings are limited to five people and outdoor private gatherings are limited to 10. Public indoor gatherings are limited to 25 people or 25 per cent capacity, whichever is smaller, while outdoor public gatherings are limited to 50 people. All of these limits increase if organizers can verify everyone involved is fully vaccinated.

B.C., Alberta, Ontario, Nova Scotia and N.L. limit private gatherings to a household plus 10 visitors. Saskatchewan has no limits and Ontario limits indoor gatherings to five people. Quebec, N.B. and P.E.I. limit gatherings to a single household.

When it comes to foodservice establishments, P.E.I., N.B., Quebec and Ontario do not currently allow dine-in service.

B.C. only allows establishments offering full meal service to be open, meaning bars, nightclubs and other establishments that only serve snacks and drinks are included.

Nova Scotia, Manitoba and P.E.I. all allow restaurants to open at 50 per cent of maximum capacity, though Manitoba has an upper limit of 250 people.

Alberta lets restaurants hold dine-in services with a maximum of 10 people per table but only if the establishment makes sure patrons are fully vaccinated. Indoor dining is otherwise closed. Saskatchewan again has no limits on occupancy.

Rules around religious services are where some of the greatest disparities between the provinces can be found.

P.E.I. does not allow organized worship services at all, Quebec does not allow any indoor worship services and N.B. only allows for outdoor, drive-in or virtual services. Both Quebec and P.E.I. still allow for funerals to be held with limited capacity.

In Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, funerals, burials, weddings and religious or cultural ceremonies have a 25 per cent capacity limit or 50 people, whichever is lower.

Ontario limits its capacity on religious and related ceremonies to 50 per cent indoors, Saskatchewan has no limit and Alberta limits to one-third maximum capacity.

There are no restrictions in B.C. if a worship service leader determines everyone is fully vaccinated and capacity is 50 per cent otherwise.

Manitoba limits religious gatherings to 50 per cent capacity or 250 people, whichever is lower, if everyone is fully vaccinated. Otherwise, the limit is 25 people or 25 per cent, whichever is lower.

All provinces have some kind of restriction when it comes to who can visit people in hospitals or long-term care homes. Visits are generally disallowed except in the case of one or two designated caregivers and in circumstances like end-of-life or compassionate reasons.

Like with education, there are too many variations between the rules at individual facilities and health authorities to complete a full comparison.

Every province has some form of document or QR code that allows its residents to provide proof of vaccination.

What these documents provide access to depends on what kind of facilities are allowed to open under public health rules, but showing them is required to enter restaurants, venues and activities deemed non-essential in provinces with a couple of exceptions.

Saskatchewan requires people to provide proof of vaccination to enter food service establishments, event and entertainment venues and fitness centres and gyms, though people can also provide a recent negative test result instead. Alberta only requires proof of vaccination for patrons at businesses participating in its exemptions program.

When it comes to fines levied on businesses and people violating public health orders, Manitoba currently hands out $1,296 fines to individuals and $5,000 fines to corporations. Notably, a restaurant in Winnipeg called Monstrosity Burger is facing a fine up to $1 million for repeatedly violating public health orders.

That’s more severe than B.C., which gives out tickets worth $575 to people not complying with health rules and $230 tickets to people not following instructions from officers enforcing health orders. Event and business operators who don’t check the vaccination status of their patrons can get fined $2,300.

An offence in Alberta gets a $4,000 fine, though further prosecution can seek penalties for up to $100,000 in the case of a first-time offence.

Saskatchewan gives out $2,000 tickets to individuals, $10,000 tickets to corporations and a 40 per cent victim surcharge.

CTV Montreal reported last year the average COVID-19-related ticket in Quebec was approximately $1,500, though the provincial government is considering implementing a tax or fee on unvaccinated people.

New Brunswick fines people between $480 and $20,400 to people who violate self-isolation rules. Nova Scotia fines people $2,422 for a first violation of health orders and $11,622 for each additional offence. Corporations get $11,622 fines for first violations and $57,622 for each additional offence.

Newfoundlanders who violate health orders can face up to six months in jail or fines between $500 and $2,500. A corporation faces fines between $5,000 to $50,000. P.E.I. sets minimum fines for people at $1,000 and $5,000 for businesses.

For masks, every province requires them to be worn in indoor public settings.

In each of these categories, Manitoba does not currently lead the pack when it comes to the severity of restrictions except in cases like mask use where all the provinces are aligned. It typically exists somewhere in the middle.

This has changed over time and will likely change going forward.

The Bank of Canada has a COVID-19 stringency index tracker on its website ranking how strong each region and Canadian province’s restrictions are.

To do this, it has borrowed and modified methodology created originally by the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom and measures what kind of facilities have been closed, what gatherings are restricted, whether residents are required to stay at home, restrictions on travel and movement, enforcement measures relating to public health orders and what kind of public messaging campaigns related to the vaccine are in place.

According to that tracker, Manitoba has had periods of time where it did have the strongest restrictions, including a long stretch from June 16 through Aug. 6, 2021. It was last on top for a single day on Dec. 5, 2021.

As of this tracker’s last update on Jan. 12, 2022, Manitoba ranks sixth behind Quebec, N.L., P.E.I., Nova Scotia and Ontario.

“It seems like Premier Stefanson has just pulled a page out of Brian Pallister’s playbook,” Manitoba NDP Leader Wab Kinew said in a phone interview on Friday. “Mr. Pallister used to say time and time again every time he was criticized for not taking a stronger pandemic [approach], ‘we’ve got the strongest restrictions,’ even when it wasn’t true.”

Kinew said Stefanson is trying to duck accountability and obscure that they could have taken action before the holidays to limit the record-high hospitalizations and strain on intensive care units Manitoba is currently experiencing.

“It’s very clear that public health officials were recommending stronger action and that they were ignored,” he said in reference to a media briefing on Jan. 12 where on multiple occasions, Stefanson interrupted deputy chief provincial public health officer Dr. Jazz Atwal when he was asked if public health had recommended implementing stricter health orders.

The NDP leader said other provinces experiencing fewer cases, deaths and hospitalizations per capita is proof that differences in the way jurisdictions are handling the pandemic have an impact.

“No, we absolutely do not have the toughest regulations,” Manitoba Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont said on the subject on Friday. “And we certainly haven’t had the clearest communications or toughest enforcement. If you’re actually expecting people to comply, if that’s what the goal of all these regulations is … that hasn’t been happening in Manitoba.”

He said Stefanson’s assertions of having among the strongest restrictions are at odds with chief provincial public health officer Dr. Roussin’s frequent comments that the goal is to have the least amount of restrictions in place allowed by the current situation.

While the province continues to talk about the pandemic with Manitobans, Lamont believes it isn’t backing those words up with restrictions or enforcement measures.

Given the lack of increase in restrictions, Doctors Manitoba had advice for Manitobans when reached for comment.

“During this omicron wave, with so much pressure on our hospitals, Doctors Manitoba urges Manitobans to go over and above the province’s pandemic restrictions, including reducing the number of people you have contact with outside of your household, wearing a good quality tight-fitting mask, and getting vaccinated or boosted,” the organization wrote in an email. “These steps will help to slow the spread of COVID-19 right now, to spread out the impact on our overwhelmed hospitals.”

Stefanson’s office sent the following response when asked for comment:

“Throughout the pandemic, Manitoba has implemented and maintained among the strictest public health orders in the country to protect the health system and our most vulnerable communities. In many cases, Manitoba has imposed restrictions earlier and for a longer period of time compared to most other Canadian jurisdictions.

“The use of the immunization card to access services is a restriction in and of itself — and Manitoba led the nation with this initiative last June.”

The spokesperson pointed out Manitoba has remained in level orange restrictions since October, increased vaccine requirements in November and increased restrictions on indoor capacity limits and gatherings sizes in December.

They also stressed Manitobans need to keep following the fundamentals and limit contacts to reduce the spread of the virus.

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