Not just Trinity Bellwoods park: Muncipalities across Ontario are struggling to maintain social distancing

Thestar.com
May 26, 2020
Jason Miller

Premier Doug Ford said Monday that he wouldn’t punish all of Ontario for last weekend’s mass gathering with little to no social distancing in Trinity Bellwoods Park.

Turns out Toronto isn’t the only city dealing with what appears to be public displays of COVID-19 fatigue.

The Star called muncipalities across the province to take the pulse of how people behaved on one of the first warm weekends of the year.

Bylaw enforcement officers in Brampton and Mississauga issued dozens of tickets for a variety of offences and St. Catharines reported signs of “voluntary compliance lessening.” Other municipalities, such as Kitchener and Barrie, gave people a passing grade for continued social distancing.

For the most part, people respected distancing measures at Mississauga parks over the weekend, but enforcement officers still issued 105 tickets for a variety of offences, including personal protective equipment littering, gatherings of more than five and parks bylaw infractions, said city spokesperson Catherine Monast.

“We, unfortunately, continued to see people go to our waterfront parks, resulting in over 350 parking tickets for illegal parking as a result of lots in parks being closed,” she said.

“We did receive seven reports of large groups gathering at various park sites,” Monast said. “Enforcement staff attended and reported that most people were distancing appropriately. Those who were not were educated and they dispersed.”

Officers in Brampton also clamped down on non-compliant residents over the weekend.

Parks and playgrounds in Brampton remain closed while the city did reopen its outdoor tennis, golf course and pickleball courts, last week.

This past weekend, Brampton issued 67 warnings and laid 49 charges to individuals not maintaining physical distancing and violating social gathering orders.

Municipalities like St. Catharines say voluntary compliance was not an issue until the weather started warming up and people want to use parks and beaches.

“We are facing similar challenges as other cities and we see voluntary compliance lessening, especially as the groups get larger,” said Darrell Smith, director of municipal works.

Smith said risky behaviour will not go unchecked.

“We had an incident at Sunset Beach this past weekend with large groups, and we needed the police to assist,” he said. “Once the police arrived, the crowds dispersed.”

By all accounts, residents in Barrie don’t need police watching their every move to follow the rules.

“While we did have a lot of residents who visited our waterfront, almost everyone kept to the recommended physical distancing space and there were very few issues,”said Barrie spokesperson Melanie Rumley.

Kitchener residents who flocked to popular parks are also being commended for being a model example.

“Residents complied with the provincial regulations and practised physical distancing,” said city spokesperson Jennifer Hassum. “To date, we have only had to issue one ticket for non-compliance with the provincial orders.”

Enforcement in Mississauga wasn’t only punitive as officers there also educated more than 7,000 residents, “and it is our hope that this will result in behavioural change,” Monast said

As of 5 p.m. Monday, Ontario health units had reported a total of 27,489 confirmed and probable cases, including 2,193 deaths.

Those numbers have led cities like Mississauga to take a more conservative approach to reopening its public amenities.

“Given a significant cluster of the new cases reported by the province have been in Peel, council made the decision last week that the numbers did not support a broader reopening of our park amenities as listed by the province under Phase 1,” Monast said.