Good morning. It’s James Keller in Calgary.
As COVID-19 cases rise across the country, there have been an increasing number of infections and outbreaks on Hutterite colonies across the Prairies.
There have been dozens of cases at colonies in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and Saskatchewan’s Premier warned this week that potentially hundreds more could be confirmed soon.
Health officials had earlier warned that testing and rules about physical distancing were facing resistance, and a group called the Hutterian Safety Council has been working with the provinces to improve that.
But Hutterites are also facing another challenge: discrimination. Leaders say some members of their community have been turned away from businesses because of the outbreaks.
Hutterites live and work communally on the Prairies and in some northern regions of the United States. There are 370 Hutterite colonies in Canada with a total population of 35,010, according to the 2016 census. Hutterites, who share Protestant Anabaptist roots with Mennonites and Amish people, are recognized by their traditional clothing, small-scale farming and manufacturing, and isolation from surrounding society.
Their distinctive traditional clothing makes them easy to identify – and it has also made them easy to target.
Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe is urging people in his province to not single out Hutterites during the pandemic.
“Whether you see a member from a Hutterite community at a farmer’s market or in a grocery store or somewhere else, you should not automatically assume that they are from a community that has active cases,” he said.
“I would ask all Saskatchewan residents to treat one another, whether you’re from a Hutterite colony or not, with the exactly the same respect that you expect to be treated with in return.”
The Prairie provinces have all taken different approaches about when to publicly identify cases on Hutterite colonies, which in some cases has made the situation worse.
Paul Waldner, a minister from the CanAm Hutterite Colony in Manitoba, wrote to the province last week urging the government to stop identifying infections at colonies, which he said stigmatizes residents. He said if the province refused, the colony would file a human-rights complaint.
The province’s public health officer responded by saying he would no longer indicate when new cases are in Hutterite communities unless it involves a risk to public health.
Canada’s chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, says discrimination against Hutterites will only make the public health response more difficult.
Dr. Tam said one of the most important aspects of the pandemic response is having public support of health measures.
“The surrounding communities or the rest of the population should not stigmatize these communities,” Dr. Theresa Tam said yesterday. “It does not help with any of the response.”
This is the weekly Western Canada newsletter written by B.C. Editor Wendy Cox and Alberta Bureau Chief James Keller. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for it and all Globe newsletters here.
Around the West:
MASKED IN BANFF: Banff has made masks mandatory along its busiest street and in indoor public spaces beginning this Friday, a move that the town says makes it the only municipality in Canada to require face coverings in an outdoor space. Provincial governments have been reluctant to mandate mask-wearing as COVID-19 outbreaks spike in the Prairies and elsewhere in Canada, but cities and towns have been stepping in with their own rules.
Calgary city council voted last week to require masks in public indoor spaces as of this weekend, and Edmonton, which already requires masks in city-owned facilities and on public transit, plans to debate stricter measures later this week. The town council in Canmore, located an hour’s drive west of Calgary just outside Banff National Park, plans to discuss a similar bylaw next week. Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa and Hamilton have also passed mask bylaws.
Saskatchewan’s Premier is urging people to wear masks when they can’t physically distance to prevent the spread of COVID-19, but he stopped short Monday of mandating their use indoors. “There may be a point in time, either on a regional basis or maybe even provincewide, where we will have to go to wearing masks as a mandatory measure,” Moe said during a Monday media briefing. “We have not made that decision as of yet.
TRANSIT RECOVERY: Transit ridership in Vancouver reached a record peak in 2019, according to new figures in its annual report. The agency was one of the star performers in the U.S. and Canada, with 453 million boardings. The proportion of additional riders far exceeded population growth. Now, TransLink senior managers say it could be as much as three to five years before the system gets back to those levels, as the region faces the potential for a second wave of shutdowns, a longer-term recession, and some degree of permanent work restructuring as office jobs and education shift online.
OIL AND GAS INQUIRY: An environmental law group wants a court to suspend the Alberta government’s inquiry into oil and gas industry critics until there’s a decision on whether it’s legal. The United Conservative Party government contends foreign interests are bankrolling environmental opposition to Canadian fossil-fuel projects. Ecojustice filed a lawsuit last November that alleged the inquiry is politically motivated, biased and outside provincial jurisdiction. In the meantime, the group is seeking an injunction in Court of Queen’s Bench that would force the inquiry to halt its work until there is a ruling in the lawsuit.
WILDERNESS THREATENED: A vast section of Alberta backcountry once considered for a park is being overused by tens of thousands of campers who cut trees, strew garbage and trespass, says a provincial advisory committee. Camping numbers in the large undeveloped wilderness in central Alberta’s foothills and Rocky Mountains have been “insane,” says the most recent report by Alberta Environment’s Bighorn backcountry standing committee. The report details firepits pocking the bush and frequent trespassing onto Stoney First Nation land. People set up camp for the weekend, leave everything and return five days later.
MENG EXTRADITION: Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou is seeking fuller access to redacted spy-agency documents to bolster her claim that her Charter rights were violated during her arrest at Vancouver airport and that her extradition case should be thrown out. At a virtual hearing at Ottawa’s Federal Court on Monday, Ms. Meng’s lawyers argued that several documents from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, previously released under a disclosure order, were likely the subject of excessive redactions and overly broad claims of privilege.
MURDER SUICIDE: A woman who was part of Saskatchewan’s first death review panel into a domestic violence killing says Saskatchewan should routinely review child and domestic homicides, as Ontario does, to learn patterns to help prevent them. Jo-Anne Dusel, who is executive director of the Provincial Association of Transition Houses and Services of Saskatchewan, renewed the call this week after the deaths of Tessa, 7, and her brother Wesley, 11, whom police say were killed last month by their mother Tammy Fiddler in North Battleford.
BACK TO SCHOOL?: Manitoba’s Opposition New Democrats called on the provincial government Tuesday to hire 400 new teachers and build or rent new classrooms in order to reopen schools in September. Because physical distancing is required to keep COVID-19 from spreading, the government should set firm limits on classroom sizes and reorganize schools in time for the first day of school, NDP Leader Wab Kinew said.
Opinion:
Globe editorial board on the opioid crisis in B.C. and Alberta: “Rehabilitation is everyone’s goal, but Mr. Kenney’s government underestimates the intractability of addiction. Treatment can’t happen if a person overdoses and dies because important health care such as supervised consumption is not available.”
Alex Bozikovic on Vancouver’s turmoil over a new apartment tower: ”If planners are interested in making a more beautiful city, they might focus more heavily on architecture itself. The Birch building, designed by IBI Group, is unnecessarily busy, with six or seven flavours of brick, metal and window on its base. It would benefit from a quieter array of materials and better detailing on the ground level, where people will see it up close. Then let it be tall.”
Gary Mason on the turmoil in U.S. politics: ”Democrats don’t seem too worried about Mr. Trump’s plan. They don’t appear to believe, for starters, that law and order is a priority of the public. They are also quick to point out the rioting we are witnessing is happening under Mr. Trump’s watch, not Mr. Biden’s. They also feel the President’s disastrous handling of the COVID-19 pandemic eclipses all other matters. All this may be true. But it doesn’t mean Mr. Trump won’t try to make law and order a dominant issue. Which means the more chaos there is, the more he likes it.”
Wendy Cox
James Keller