Medicine Hat City Hall. (CHAT News Today)

By Tiffany Goodwein

Municipalities consider pushing province on regional restrictions

Feb 3, 2021 | 10:11 AM

MEDICINE HAT, AB- A few municipalities in Southern Alberta are considering following Medicine Hat’s lead in writing a letter to the province to push for a more regional approach to COVID-19 restrictions.

Earlier this week, Medicine Hat City Council voted unanimously to pen a letter to the province to open a dialogue about regionalization. Mayor Ted Clugston said Tuesday, the city’s low case numbers were the driving force behind the decision.

“I think council thinks there should be a reward. Let’s reward those communities that are doing well, the counties that are doing well, and maybe even prove to the rest of the province that maybe you can be open too so there could be some bonuses for Calgary and Edmonton too,” Clugston said.

Brooks Mayor Barry Morishita told CHAT News Today that the City of Brooks plans to discuss writing a letter at their next council meeting.

The city was hard-hit with over a thousand COVID-19 cases earlier on in the pandemic, but now their active case numbers stand at just two.

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Morishita echoed Clugston’s position that an incentive is needed for regions that are keeping case numbers down.

“It’s hard to justify more restrictions or less restrictions based on a situation that doesn’t occur here,” he believes, referencing the high case numbers in other areas of the province like Calgary and Edmonton.

“I do understand, however, the overall need to protect the hospitalizations and ICU’s across the province. I understand that, however, just like how we attacked our issue here in Brooks with the numbers we had, and the outbreak we had here specifically in Brooks, and the work that we did with all the testing, the isolation centres that we did. We did far beyond everyone else. We did all that in order to mitigate it, and it worked, but we didn’t say the same thing had to happen in Fort McMurray, or Grande Prairie, or Beaumont,” Morishita said.

Cypress County has confirmed that they too will be writing a letter to the province to push for regionalization and reopening the economy.

The City of Medicine Hat plans to send its letter to the province on Wednesday.