It’ll be a coronavirus petri dish for pro sports

You might have suspected this before, but now you know for sure.

The Canadian government believes baseball players are more important than you. It believes baseball players should not have to abide by the same basic rules of all Canadian citizens, in particular those governing the health and safety of our country and its people in the midst of a frightening global pandemic.

Justin Trudeau’s Liberals aren’t alone in this. Doug Ford’s Ontario Conservatives feel exactly the same way. John Tory, too.

How else to explain the decision to allow the Blue Jays to pull up stakes from their Florida training centre and head north to the Rogers Centre without being forced to quarantine themselves for 14 days like the rest of us would have to?

Right now, Canadians can’t even travel from Saskatchewan to Prince Edward Island without isolating themselves for two weeks. That’s how strongly those in P.E.I. feel about keeping their province free of COVID-19.

But 60 ballplayers and several dozen other essential staff members that have been cooking in the coronavirus stew that is Florida?

Sure, bring ’em in. Giving the Jays a federal quarantine exemption is a terrible idea that comes at a time when Toronto is finally turning the corner in terms of battling the coronavirus. We just got into Stage 2, and perhaps Stage 3 is around the corner. With the most people in the country we’re still far behind much of the country, but there’s optimism that progress is being made.

In a larger sense, Canada is doing exponentially better than the U.S. because Canadians have been willing to make sacrifices and not turn a health crisis into a political sideshow. And this is our reward? Don’t tell me about all the extra rules and protocols Mark Shapiro and his staff have put in place to create a “bubble” around Rogers Centre and the adjoining hotel. This is the same organization that just supervised a breakout at its Dunedin complex, demonstrating that, like much of America, it doesn’t have either a handle on how to battle COVID-19 or the will to force people to change their behaviour. If this ball club really was capable of creating and enforcing a safe bubble atmosphere, why didn’t it just do that in Florida?

A flurry of roster moves on Thursday, meanwhile, bumped the Jays to 62 players, two above the maximum allowed for training camp. Why? Well, logic suggests because at least two players have tested positive for the coronavirus and won’t be able to travel north with the team.

So an organization struggling to deal with a pandemic is suddenly being given special dispensation that isn’t available to you or me to travel across the U.S.-Canada border.

That’s just wrong.

The Jays and government authorities says this is only a training camp agreement that does not cover travel by the team to and from the U.S. for games or even give permission for the Jays to play at Rogers Centre, but they might as well rubber stamp that right now. The feds have already rolled over and made it clear the ambitions and needs of baseball matters more than the health and individual rights of ordinary Canadians.

Which means we’ll almost certainly get all those players from other MLB teams coming to Toronto, and they won’t have to quarantine, either. The Jays will go to American cities, then return without having to isolate.

But not you. You’re not allowed to go anywhere.

It’s not just baseball. The NHL, we believe, will use Toronto and Edmonton as “hubs” because there’s no U.S. city deemed safe enough to host games in August and September. (If the hub city isolation concept really works, why would it matter what’s going on in the municipality around the hub? Just wondering.)

So in addition to the Jays, who will certainly get special allowances to cross the border, and the other MLB teams that won’t have to quarantine to play games in Toronto, we’re going to get 250 NHL players and the staff of their teams as well. You can bet NHLers coming from outside the country will get federal exemptions as well. The precedent has been set.

Toronto is about to become a coronavirus petri dish for pro sports. When you look at the positive tests the PGA has had to deal with in the short time golf has been back, and the disastrous outcome of Novak Djokovic’s group dance with the devil in Europe, there’s already evidence that young athletes struggle with the concept that they have to play by the same coronavirus rules as everyone else.

Team sports are going to find it even more difficult with much greater numbers. Yet Canadian, provincial and local authorities believe this is the perfect time to expose those who live in the GTA to these unnecessary risks.

Why was the border closed? Why do we have quarantine rules? To protect Canadians, and to avoid joining the U.S. in the madness that’s going on down there. British Columbia made the very sensible decision it wanted no part of the NHL’s travelling circus and was putting its citizens first.

Not Ontario. Not Toronto. We’re supposed to tell our teenagers not to go to parties, encourage our kids not to see their friends, avoid visiting our loved ones in senior residences in the name of a greater good. We’re asked to wear masks. Businesses have taken a beating because it wasn’t safe to be open. Restaurants are still closed. Our musicians and actors have nowhere to perform. Canadian golf took one on the jaw when it had to cancel the Canadian Open largely because of the two-week quarantine rule.

But ballplayers get to swagger in and out of town when they want. And they promise to behave. And if they don’t? What will be the consequences? Nobody’s saying, just as nobody has any idea what will happen if baseball or the NHL experiences a coronavirus breakout.

And you and I have to take the risk that it’s all going to be just fine.

Ballplayers, after all, are more important than you.

An organization struggling to deal with a pandemic is suddenly being given special dispensation that isn’t available to you or me to travel across the U.S.-Canada border