Ford backtracks on pandemic police
TORONTO — Ontario reversed course on sweeping new police powers Saturday, just one day after Premier Doug Ford announced the measures that triggered a swift and furious backlash.
Officers will no longer have the right to stop any pedestrian or driver to ask why they’re out or request their home address, Solicitor General Sylvia Jones said in a written statement on Saturday evening.
Instead, she said, police will only be able to stop people who they have reason to believe are participating in an “organized public event or social gathering.”
As the number of people infected with COVID-19 in hospital reached record levels, Ford tweeted that another of the measures would also be reversed.
“Ontario’s enhanced restrictions were always intended to stop large gatherings where spread can happen,” Ford said. “Our regulations will be amended to allow playgrounds, but gatherings outside will still be enforced.”
Civil libertarians and pundits attacked new anti-pandemic restrictions announced Friday by Ford as misguided, saying the added police powers aimed at enforcing stay-at-home orders were overkill.
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association welcomed Saturday’s reversal.
“The new order rationalizes and narrows the unconstitutional Friday standard. The new standard is also tied to a public health objective, and avoids arbitrary detention,” said Michael Bryant, executive director of the CCLA.
Ahead of the reversal, large and small police forces across the province said they had no intention of exercising their newfound powers.
Andrew Fletcher, chief of the South Simcoe Police Service, said officers would only act on complaints. Police forces from Thunder Bay to Ottawa to Toronto and Woodstock expressed similar positions.
“We are all going through a horrific year of COVID-19 and all associated with it together. The HRPS will NOT be randomly stopping vehicles for no reason during the pandemic or afterwards (RIDE being an exception),” Halton Police Chief Steve Tanner tweeted before the province walked back the regulations.
The closing of outdoor spaces, meanwhile, puzzled many public health experts who said the measures didn’t make sense.
“Outdoor activities are vital for mental and physical health, especially with stayat-home orders,” Dr. Isaac Bogoch, who sits on the province’s COVID-19 Vaccine
Distribution Task Force, said in a tweet.
“Science is clear: Outdoor COVID transmission is extremely rare.”
The pandemic, meanwhile, continued unabated on the weekend.
The new restrictions, including a twoweek extension to the province’s stay-athome order until May 20, were announced amid dire warnings from government scientific advisers that the pandemic was only set to worsen.
Other measures include further restrictions on outdoor gatherings and indoor religious services, while recreational facilities such as golf courses are now closed. Ontario intends to shut its borders with Quebec and Manitoba to non-essential travel effective Monday.
Ford said Friday the province was “on its heels” and the measures were urgently needed to bring the province’s raging COVID-19 situation under control.
But experts said Ford had missed the mark on key drivers of the pandemic, including a lack of paid sick leave for essential workers and a dearth of evidence playgrounds have been a transmission source.
“Doug Ford’s handling of this pandemic has been an abject failure and absolute disaster,” said Patty Coates, president of the Ontario Federation of Labour.