Nunavut prepares to allow gyms and pools to reopen
Iqaluit’s aquatic centre expected to reopen in July
Iqaluit’s aquatic centre will remain closed until sometime in July. (File photo)
Updated on Thursday, June 11 at 5:00 p.m.
Iqaluit’s aquatic centre won’t open until sometime in July, despite the fact that the Government of Nunavut is allowing gyms and pools to reopen on Monday, June 15.
In a news release today, the city said it would announce the first phase of the aquatic centre’s reopening on June 26.
“We know that residents are anxious for the gym and pool to open,” a city spokesperson wrote in an email. “We are doing everything we can to ensure that it does with proper safety measures in place.”
A machine that controls airflow and humidity in the pool room stopped working while the aquatic centre was closed because of the pandemic. The city ordered a replacement at the beginning of May. After it arrives it will have to be installed and the system recalibrated, according to the spokesperson.
According to the GN’s plan, when the pool opens, it will be for lane swimming only. People will work out individually, two metres apart. Supplies to clean equipment after each use will be readily available.
People in Cambridge Bay will be allowed to go back to the municipality’s weight room on Monday. Francis Oduro, the hamlet’s director of recreation, said only two people at a time will be allowed to work out. Bylaw officers will pop in periodically to make sure people are following the rule.
He added that nobody can buy a pass at this time, so only people with a gym pass can go to the weight room.
Oduro expects the pool to open on July 1.
This week, libraries, museums and retail stores opened, and employees went back to work in their offices. Dr. Michael Patterson, Nunavut’s chief public health officer, said that the reopening plan will continue as long as there aren’t any cases of COVID-19 in the territory, and as long as the number of people under investigation doesn’t dramatically increase.
There are currently 128 people under investigation for COVID-19, and since the end of March, 1,197 people have been investigated in total.
The territory has had no confirmed cases of COVID-19. On Thursday, June 11, the GN extended its public health emergency until June 25.
Following recent criticism from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Patterson said that Nunavut’s travel restrictions being upheld through the public health emergency are constitutional. The measures are meant to “delay or slow the spread of the communicable disease,” he said.
On May 25, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association wrote a letter to Nunavut’s justice minister, Jeanine Ehaloak, saying that restricting entry into the territory to residents and essential workers limits the mobility of other Canadian residents and is therefore unconstitutional.
Patterson said the impact of COVID-19 coming to communities in Nunavut would be greater than in other parts of the country, so the restrictions are accordingly more strict.
“The opinions of our lawyers … [are] that the infringement meets that threshold of acceptable under the emergency declaration,” Patterson said.
Previously, the GN had talked about sharing a “bubble” with the Northwest Territories, so residents could travel back and forth without having to self-isolate for 14 days. Patterson said he’s still open to this idea, and that he’s waiting for the Government of the N.W.T. to further develop that plan.
Patterson said he understands that people are getting tired of the uncertainty, and of being cautious. “We know there’s only a certain period of time where people will strictly wear masks [for example], and then those habits will start to slip,” he said.
Patterson said that if Nunavut remains without a case of the disease, schools will reopen in September.
The Department of Education is drafting contingency plans now, so schools can respond to COVID-19 if it appears in the territory when children have gone back to class.
Patterson and whatever lawyers he is consulting with are incorrect. The public health orders are entirely unconstitutional, precisely because there is no public health emergency and no Covid 19 in the territory. As jurisdictions around Nunavut namely Ontario, Manitoba and Quebec reopen and clearly demonstrate an absence of the virus the rationale for these draconian measures become even more tenuous. Expect a legal challenge sooner rather than later and if it happens the GN can expect to lose.
There are at this moment in time ZERO jurisdictions in the world which have no COVID-19 cases, and barely a dozen with no deaths. Nunavut being a rare exception in those statistics where almost 40,000 people have been kept safe where if infected by this disease, with a death rate of around 5.47% would result in 2,191 Nunavummiut dead.
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So for your community, which 5 people from every 100 are you willing to let die. Start with your immediate family and once you have the list I’d be curious to see it. Who are you willing to doom to agonizing pain, away from family, gasping for their last breath till they suffocate to death.
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When you have the gall to make that list, then feel free to demand BOTH outcomes equally with a straight face as you explain to your family why YOUR freedom is more important than THEIR lives.
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I find it disturbing that not a single one of these people demanding their freedom is willing to add a list of people; relatives, parents, fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters, whom they are willing to sacrifice on their altar of freedom.
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Cowards! Ready to criticize anyone who made tough decisions, but gutless to make the tough call themselves.
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I’m grateful to the doctors and officials who’ve made the tough decisions, painful decisions, and economically hurtful decisions that have SAVED EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN NUNAVUT! NOT ONE PERSON HAS DIED from COVID-19!
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Thank you (heartfelt from me personally)
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And Thank You even for saving the fool who posted above. Thank You for saving his miserable life so he can one-day maybe learn to appreciate what he has, and for everyone whom he has NOT lost to COVID-19 in Nunavut.
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Almost 4,000 more people died from it today. So the number of people around the world who can say they are NOT affected by it is getting smaller fast. My hope is that Nunavut residents can stay untouched by this pain.
With new information and facts coming out, these measures seems ridiculous. With all the provinces opening up that had extreme cases of covid 19 why does Nunavut continue to be on extreme lock down? To have a territory without a single case still under such restrictions seems outrageous. Keep border restrictions, Sure. but there is no reason people cannot live life as usual. It makes no sense that restaurants, bars, pools or gyms cannot be business as usual.
I thinks it’s important for the vulnerable to remain isolated. That means old folks primarily, and some of us (the lucky ones) are NOT in long-term care. Some of us were continuing to work post-retirement until the threat of death from COVID-19 came about. We followed the public health guidelines and “stayed home”, and lost income as a result. Some of us had jobs that could not be done from home. It is still risky, not withstanding the current (presumed) absence of the virus in Nunavut, to go back to work It will be even riskier when the re-opening measures makes a second wave inevitable.
I’ll go back to work when the MLA’s and the MP’s do the same and the Prime Minister comes out of his cottage to do something other than attend demonstrations.