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Saskatoon city council voted during a special meeting Friday to defeat the proposed bylaw that would have limited gathering sizes in the city.
“The bylaw serves to prohibit the unvaccinated and partially vaccinated from gathering in private dwellings beyond their own household,” the city solicitor read of the proposed COVID-19 Gathering Bylaw, 2021 during Friday’s council meeting.
The final vote was nearly unanimous in opposition to a second reading of the bylaw, defeating the motion. Only Ward 2 Coun. Hilary Gough voted in favour of the motion.
The bylaw, if passed, also would have restricted fully vaccinated households to only gathering with one other fully vaccinated household, reduced private gathering sizes in public venues to 25 per cent capacity with no indoor dining where proof of vaccination is not required for the event, and reduced gathering sizes at places of worship to 25 per cent capacity or a maximum of 150 people, whichever is less, where proof of vaccination is not required.
Where proof of vaccination is required, these restrictions would not apply.
The council resolved Monday during its regular meeting that the city solicitor should develop the bylaw to be consistent with advice provided by the Saskatchewan Health Authority’s medical health officers, as well as modelling and data on the pandemic provided to the council in a report.
Three speakers implored the council to reconsider implementing the bylaw.
Chris Guerette, CEO of the Saskatoon and Region Realtors Association, raised concerns realtors would face with being able to hold open houses and showing homes to prospective buyers. A concern about how home-run daycares would be affected was also raised during discussion.
Discussions of jurisdictional concerns were raised during discussion and comments made by councillors and Mayor Charlie Clark.
Coun. David Kirton especially raised the concerns of creating a bylaw as “politics for the sake of politics.” He and Clark noted the likelihood of the council creating a bylaw that would be struck down by the provincial government was too high to justify passing it.
The council did vote in favour of a motion put forward by Ward 7 Coun. Mairin Loewen, who asked that administration report back to council about “options for increased public education and communications on the basis for the updates and modelling provided to the council” by the medical health officers and SHA.
“I think many of us share a sense of duty to do everything we can do under the current circumstances, and recognizing that our actual powers for bylaw-making are less than clear, we do know we have some capacity in our ability to speak with citizens,” Loewen said, noting “there is rampant misinformation in the community in a variety of stripes.”
That motion passed 6-4, with Clark and council promising to continue partnering with the SHA and MHOs in the province to improve the state of COVID-19 in Saskatchewan.
