Face masks or shields are now mandatory in all public spaces and vehicles in Morinville.
Morinville town council voted 5-2 in favor of a revised mandatory face covering bylaw Nov. 13 after extensive debate. Councillors Rebecca Balanko and Stephen Dafoe were opposed.
The bylaw, which is now in effect, requires everyone in Morinville to wear a face covering (either a mask or face shield) in any indoor or enclosed place or vehicle accessible to the public. Anyone who violates the bylaw can be fined at least $100.
People who are under 10, cannot use a covering without aid, or can’t wear a covering for mental, physical, or human rights reasons are exempt from wearing a face covering. People are also exempt when exercising, eating, drinking, helping someone with a disability if a covering would inhibit that help, or doing something that requires the cover to be removed (e.g. confirming one’s identity). The bylaw also exempts people who are separated by physical barriers or participating in a personal consultation, musical, dance, or play where everyone is at least two metres apart from having to wear a face covering.
The face covering requirement does not apply to schools, hospitals, or child-care facilities, and excludes stage areas during religious ceremonies and employee-only areas if there are physical barriers or two meters of space between covered and uncovered persons.
The bylaw was very similar to one council voted down in late September. Council voted to debate the passage of a face covering bylaw again at a meeting Nov. 10.
Town chief administrative officer Stephane Labonne told council that this was, in fact, legal under the town’s procedure bylaw. While that bylaw bans council from reviving a defeated motion unless one year or a general election have passed, it says nothing about bringing back a defeated bylaw.
Morinville had just one active COVID-19 case when it first voted down this bylaw, Mayor Barry Turner said. As of Nov. 10, it had some 34 cases or 300 per 100,000 people – the highest infection rate in the Edmonton region. COVID-19 cases threatened to overwhelm Alberta’s hospitals, and Premier Jason Kenney had imposed new measures on the Edmonton region on Nov. 12 to slow its spread.
“Morinville is not an island,” Turner said.
“We are in a heavily populated region and have seen how a few cases can turn into many.”
A mandatory face covering law would encourage more people to wear masks and protect others from COVID-19, he continued. In the absence of provincial leadership, “We need to make the call to make masks mandatory.”
Dafoe said he opposed this bylaw out of principal, arguing that it was unlikely to increase mask use in town and had only been legally reintroduced on a technicality.
Balanko opposed attaching a fine to the bylaw, arguing that the town had not done enough to educate people on proper mask use. She also argued that mandatory masks would create a false sense of security and encourage people to engage in risky, disease-spreading behaviors.
While research as to the precise effect of mask use is ongoing, researchers generally agree that widespread mask use significantly decreases (rather than increases) transmission of COVID-19, and that mandatory mask bylaws increase mask use.
Key revisions
Council made multiple revisions to the bylaw, many of which mirrored concepts featured in other Edmonton-area face-covering bylaws.
Dafoe borrowed two ideas from St. Albert’s bylaw. The first, carried unanimously, was to ban people from harassing or intimidating anyone who did not wear a face covering if that person was exempt from wearing one.
The second, carried 6-1 (Coun. Scott Richardson opposed) was to make both medical/non-medical masks and inflexible transparent face shields acceptable as face coverings. While councillors Richardson and Nicole Boutestein said that the bylaw’s definition of “face shield” was too prescriptive (“We don’t tell people what colour of mask they can wear, so why do we do that with face shields?” was how Richardson put it), councillors Sarah Hall and Lawrence Giffin said this precision was necessary to prevent people from using face shields as disguises to commit crimes.
Council voted 6-1 (Balanko opposed) to back Richardson’s addition of an “off-ramp” clause similar to Sturgeon County’s where the bylaw would kick in when the town was under a COVID-19 watch (defined by Alberta Health Services as having at least 10 active cases and more than 50 active cases per 100,000 people) and kick out if it spent two consecutive weeks not under such a watch.
Giffin won 4-3 support (Balanko, Dafoe, and Hall opposed) to change the bylaw’s expiry date to March 31 from Jan. 31.
Council also backed Dafoe’s suggestion to have bylaw state that it was up to town officials, not business owners, to enforce it – an unnecessary statement, as this was true of all bylaws. Council directed administration to give business owners receive cards to distribute that had with instructions on how to contact town bylaw officers about the bylaw.
Prior to Nov. 13, Morinville was one of just three Edmonton Metropolitan Region Board communities not to have a mandatory face-covering bylaw – the others were Devon and Leduc County, and Devon started debate on such a bylaw earlier that week.
Details on the bylaw are available at morinville.ca.
