Mississauga, Brampton residents will be playing outdoors by June as Ontario eyes July for full re-opening
Published May 18, 2021 at 9:13 pm
Golf, soccer, cricket, basketball and most every other outdoor sport will be back on the menu for Mississauga and Brampton residents come June 2, according to reports coming from Queen’s Park that also indicate Canada Day is being considered as the date when the Ontario economy will be fully re-opened.
Health Minister Christine Elliot has indicated the government will allow recreational amenities to begin again on June 2, but hinted that it may come even before the current stay-at-home order ends.
Speaking during Question Period in the Legislature on Monday, Elliot however dismissed calls to re-open the outdoor activities immediately.
“Today is not the day to open everything up,” she said. “I believe that it would be irresponsible for us to do that today. But we are following the evidence on a daily basis and it will happen on or before June 2.”
Reports indicate that once people get back outdoors, the Province will take into consideration a number of factors that will lead to a full re-opening that many insiders say will take place in early July.
Elliott said the government has been consulting with medical experts on the planned re-opening of Ontario but certain benchmarks have to be met including hospitalizations, the vaccination rate and the daily new caseload for the province.
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“There are a number of indicators that have to be looked at together in order to make that determination about when we can move into the first stage of reopening,” Elliott said.
While Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. David Williams has said that daily cases will have to be well below 1,000 before he recommends re-opening, the rate at which the numbers of been falling this week have been encouraging signs for the Province’s decision makers who are eager to re-open as they face increasing pressure to do so. Today’s provincial number was 1,616.
One source told insauga.com that the government fears it may lose control of the situation as people increasingly ignore lockdown measures as the summer heats up and they are enticed to gather.
“The government would rather come up with a plan to gradually bring us out of this instead of having the decision taken out of their hands and being made by those who are fed up and just don’t care what the rules are,” the source said.
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