Ontario blames everyone but itself for lockdown confusion

Christmas Day gatherings of up to five people are in — unless you're in a grey zone. Boxing Day shopping is out — unless you shop at certain big box stores. School breaks are extended. Downhill skiing is cancelled. Oh, and bathhouses and sex clubs are closed.

Welcome to Ontario Lockdown 2020, the Holiday Edition. As of 12:01 a.m. Dec. 26, the entire southern portion of the province enters a 28-day lockdown; the north, 14 days.

After Ontario announced the news Monday, some communities cried foul, most notably Ottawa. Mayor Jim Watson said his city was “blindsided” by the news. Dr. Vera Etches, the city's medical officer of health, tweeted “I have asked the provincial govt to reconsider a twoweek shutdown for Ottawa … in consideration of the evidence.”

The evidence Etches refers to is Ottawa's relatively low COVID caseload when compared with the Greater Toronto Area. As of Monday, Ottawa reported 31 new cases, 19 COVID patients in hospital and none in ICU. In contrast, Toronto reported 486 new cases; neighbouring Peel Region reported 468 and York Region reported 326.

But here's the thing: not all those GTA residents will stay put. The exodus — and the possibility of spreading COVID-19 to the places where it is currently light — is the unspoken rationale for a provincewide lockdown.

In recent days, a series of public officials, including the mayor of Collingwood, Ontario's biggest ski town, urged, “This is not the time to be travelling.” At the same time, ski hills reported having sold out of the limited number of passes on offer this year. Odds are they weren't all snapped up by locals.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford refused to dump on his own citizens, however.

Instead, he blamed international travellers and interprovincial neighbours. “We also know Quebec is shutting down,” he said. “So areas like Ottawa … will be at tremendous risk over the holidays of people flooding in across the border if they stay open.”

The answer to the latter issue, of course, would have been to shut the interprovincial bridges, something Quebec did earlier this year. But those bridges remain open. So do Quebec ski resorts, with the provincial government actually encouraging skiing because it can be safely practised outdoors. All this makes an eastern invasion of Ontario unlikely.

Another notable difference between the two provinces is that Quebec will start its lockdown a full day earlier than Ontario, on Dec. 25. And unlike Ford's last-minute edict, Quebec Premier François Legault announced his government's measures on Dec. 14, giving people time to prepare and not all crowd the malls at once.

Instead, Ford waited until Santa was practically hitching the reindeer before revealing Ontario's plans. Worse yet, headlines the day before the announcement had “sources” saying that lockdown would be imposed at 12:01 a.m. on Dec. 24. Cue the lineups at Costco. Then that trial balloon popped and the official date became Dec. 26.

Why the waffling? Did the Tories cave to their voter base outside the GTA? Did they figure that it would be futile to prevent people from getting together this late in the game, so they didn't bother trying?

Or was it business that was really on the line? Ford claimed that “We can't do it overnight. We need to give (business owners) an opportunity to get this done. ... The quicker we get through this, the quicker businesses can open up, the quicker we can get life back to normal.” He then proceeded to announce a new “small business grant” of up to $20,000 — something Canadian Federation of Independent Business head Dan Kelly promptly dismissed as a “drop in the ocean of despair.”

The unanswered, yet most important question is whether all this pain will flatten the curve. The back-of-a-napkin, blamethe-other-guy feel of Ford's plan does little to inspire confidence in this regard. This risks making citizens less likely to follow the rules, with predictable, and potentially deadly, results. Instead of throwing shade, Ford needs to justify his choices — and not play politics with the pandemic.

WHY THE WAFFLING?

DID THE TORIES CAVE TO THEIR VOTER BASE OUTSIDE THE GTA?