Places of worship versus Walmart Keep Sec. 4 and 5 students at home

Re: “Make places of worship `essential,' faithful demand” (Montreal Gazette, Feb. 1)

The essential nature of religious organizations is worth consideration, given the crying need — admitted by the government — for resources positioned to handle the mounting threat to mental health occasioned by the pandemic.

The article refers to a church of some 65,000 square feet being limited to 10 congregants at a time. My COVID -confined brain made the synaptic leap to reflect on the government's rules, often chaotic and inconsistent.

Places of worship are limited to 10 participants at any time, in places of any size, while businesses are limited by square metres of available space. By this logic, a Walmart is limited to, say, 114 shoppers while, if the building were converted to a church, this would shoot down to 10. Huh?

Might I suggest there is some sort of “systemic” discrimination going on here? In our laicité-obsessed society, religions are now relegated to the same “niceto-have” category as gyms and sports venues.

On Sunday afternoon, I received news there has been a third case of COVID at my daughter's high school. And yet, she is to continue attending school every other day, despite final provincial exams being cancelled.

I fail to understand how the CAQ government thinks that the risks of not forcing Secondary 4 and 5 students to attend school every other day outweigh their risk of catching and spreading the coronavirus. It would seem much safer to allow these students to do all their school online, at least for now, while the other lockdown measures are still in place.

Nathan Friedland, Roxboro