Local opposition to the Manitoba government’s decision to keep health restrictions unchanged for northern Manitoba has begun.
The Flin Flon and District Chamber of Commerce issued a statement Jan. 23 opposing the lack of changes in restrictions for Northern Health Region (NHR) communities, calling for a more regionalized approach. The statement came just over a week after a similar statement from The Pas and District Chamber of Commerce.
“After countless meetings, calls and conversations over the past months and with our connections through both the chamber network and government, we have repeatedly expressed our concerns over the broad use of restrictions for the entire northern region in code red when the situation in separate communities can vary greatly. The latest decision from the government has shown that, to date, they have not been listening to the voices from our chambers and communities,” reads the statement.
“We are adding our voice to the calls for change from our friends in other northern chambers and thank The Pas’ chamber for highlighting this message.”
The chamber argues in its statement that, within the NHR, maintaining restrictions for the entire region while the majority of cases in the region are in remote communities punishes businesses far from current ourbeaks.
“We understand the science and the reasons behind the lockdowns. We do not agree with the use of existing health region borders to administer these rules with no recognition for the actual state of the pandemic in communities separated by several hours of travel distance,” reads the statement.
“We ask that the data be the guide for these decisions and believe that the data will show the virus is currently contained in northern communities such as Flin Flon and The Pas. Prolonging the harshest restrictions in these areas, without any additional aide programs, does irreparable harm to our small businesses and our community members.”
Out of the 1,774 active COVID-19 cases in the NHR as of Jan. 27, most are in three remote health districts - the Island Lake, Shamattawa/York Factory/Tataskweyak/Split Lake and Bunibonibee/Oxford House/Manto Sipi/Gods River/Gods Lake health districts.
Amongst all Manitoba communities with more than 4,000 people, the five such communities in northern Manitoba - Cross Lake, Norway House, The Pas/Opaskwayak Cree Nation, Thompson and Flin Flon – rank among the highest active COVID-19 cases per capita as of Jan. 27. The lowest of the five is Flin Flon, which has 201 active COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people – far below Cross Lake, which has 974 cases per 100,000 people and The Pas/OCN, which has 779 cases per 100,000 people.
No outbreaks of COVID-19 are currently in place in the Flin Flon or The Pas districts.
“We have done the difficult work for months in keeping this virus in check in our communities - we believe we have earned the opportunity to get back to business - safely and with all precautions in place. We believe the government has the ability to do this and urge them to do so or explain to us why they won’t,” reads the statement.
Before the chamber released their letter, the subject of possible COVID-19 restriction changes came up at the Jan. 19 meeting of Flin Flon city council.
Councillors themselves stopped short of making comments about the possible restrictions - at that time, changes had only been proposed - but Mayor Cal Huntley mentioned he was disappointed with major communities in northern Manitoba still being subject to restrictions.
“I was a little disappointed, when they’re going by district and the north and our businesses may have a further delay in starting to work our way back,” said Huntley.
“That’s certainly the direction that we’re kind of led to believe, given the noon hour announcements and that kind of thing, for us and our colleagues in The Pas and some of the rest of the north too.”
Huntley said discussions would continue with provincial government officials about possible changes.
“We’re definitely giving them our opinion. We talk on a fairly regular basis and provide feedback to the government in reference to that. I think a lot of people as well filled out the surveys - I know a lot of you did and I certainly did.”
