Province urged to shame code-red rule-breakers

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This article was published 02/01/2021 (2091 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

While the public has been encouraged to tattle on neighbours who hold parties in defiance of pandemic restrictions, the Manitoba government stands accused of failing to keep people in line by refusing to name rule-breakers.

A Winnipeg ethics professor believes people accused of violating public health orders should be listed in the province’s enforcement data, which is released weekly. While businesses and churches that have been fined are identified, individuals are not. for several weeks, the province has encouraged people to report offenders via phone or email.

Arthur Schafer, founding director of the Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics at the University of Manitoba said he “strongly” disagrees with the province’s choice to withhold the names of alleged offenders.

“It seems as if violation of the pandemic regulations meant to protect public safety has been disappointingly widespread in our province,” Schafer said.

“I think there’s a very strong case to be made for using every tool in the tool-kit to encourage Manitobans to comply with the regulations and protect all of us.”

The most recent data, released Wednesday, indicate most tickets have been doled out to individuals for hosting or attending gatherings at private residences.

In December, Manitoba’s COVID enforcement team — made up of municipal police, RCMP, private security firms, bylaw officers and liquor inspectors — had issued about 200 tickets in the amount of $1,296 to individual offenders caught breaking code-red rules, including the limit on gathering sizes and requirement to wear masks in indoor public places. The province said from Dec. 21 to 27, more than 85 per cent of individual tickets were doled out in response to gatherings at people’s homes.

Asked why the province names businesses and churches but not individuals, a provincial representative cited concerns over individual safety and privacy, and noted tickets may be challenged in court, so naming the offenders would be “premature.”

Schafer said thats explanation “makes no sense at all.”

The stakes are high in a public health emergency, he said, and “protecting public safety” should be the government’s highest priority, usurping concerns over individual privacy. Privacy considerations for individuals who may be named are “not absolute,” he added, against the larger issue of safety for all.

Schafer pointed to the example of Rod Phillips, who was forced to resign as Ontario’s finance minister Thursday after a severe public backlash for travelling to a Caribbean island despite his government’s rules against non-essential travel.

The naming and shaming of people, he noted, would help deter rule-breaking both on an individual level — by increasing the cost of non-compliance to a financial and social consequence — and on a community level.

“Part of what we want to do is reinforce the norm that it’s a really important part of being a member of this community that you take steps not just to protect yourself, but steps necessary to protect others who may be vulnerable,” said Schafer.

“So I think by publicizing the names what we’re doing is a kind of public denunciation, it’s a way of reinforcing community values, in this case the value that public safety is more important than my desire to party with friends or get together with a number of other people against the rules.”

Meantime, anti-lockdown organizer Patrick Allard, who has been given three fines for contravening public health orders, believes the government’s enforcement response has been heavy-handed.

Allard’s most recent ticket, issued after he participated in a Dec. 20 gathering at the Manitoba legislature, was served by nine officers, he said.

“I’m not worried about a ticket, but what bothers me is… they don’t need nine (officers) to come. They could send two police officers. I don’t like that waste of the taxpayer money,” Allard said Thursday.

Allard said he’s seen tickets issued with little discretion, noting he has been ticketed for attending religious services, but not at protests and rallies for other causes.

“Whether you agree with this virus being a super-killer or not, you’ve got to agree that we need a more balanced approach,” he said.

Allard said he plans to challenge all three of his tickets in court, and has found legal representation to mount a constitutional defence in response to the offences. As he continues to gather with friends over the holidays, Allard said he’s “fairly certain” the three tickets won’t be his last.

julia-simone.rutgers@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @jsrutgers