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Alberta

What are the new COVID19 measures and who do they effect?

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Can we have dinner with our close friend?  What exactly is a Cohort anyway?   Is it true that we can go swimming even though we can’t play hockey?

We pulled this information From Alberta.ca to help make sense of the new health measures in the areas of Alberta most affected by COVID19.

From the Province of Alberta

Who is affected?

Targeted measures apply to all communities on the enhanced list (purple zones)  plus affected communities in the Calgary area and the Edmonton area.
All purple zone areas Calgary Area1 Edmonton Area1 Fort McMurray Grande Prairie Lethbridge Red Deer
No social gatherings inside your home or outside of your community Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
15-person limit on family & social gatherings Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Limit of 3 cohorts, plus child care Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Mask use encouraged in all indoor workplaces Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Employers in office settings to reduce employees in the workplace at one time Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Restaurants/pubs stop liquor sales by 10pm, close by 11pm (Nov 13-27) Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Ban on indoor group fitness classes & team sports (Nov 13-27) No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Ban on group singing, dancing & performing activities (Nov 13-27) No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
50-person limit on wedding and funeral services (indoor & outdoor) Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Faith-based gatherings limited to 1/3 capacity Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

How are we affected?

The main enhanced measure is gathering restrictions

A gathering is any situation that brings people together in the same space at the same time for the same purpose. Check with your municipality for additional restrictions in your area.

New gathering limits for all communities on the enhanced measures list

  • Stop holding social gatherings in private homes or outside your community
  • 15 person limit on indoor and outdoor social and family gatherings
  • 50 person limit on wedding ceremonies and funeral services
  • Faith-based gatherings limited to 1/3 capacity
  • Do not move social gatherings to communities with no restrictions.
  • Instead, socialize outdoors or in structured settings, like restaurants or other business that are subject to legal limits and take steps to prevent transmission.

Unless otherwise identified in public health orders, these gathering restrictions are in place:

  • 200 people max for outdoor audience-type community events
  • 100 people max for outdoor social gatherings and indoor seated audience events
  • 50 people max for indoor social gatherings
  • No cap for worship gatherings, restaurant, cafes, lounges and bars, casinos and bingo halls, trade shows and exhibits (with public health measures in place)
  • keep 2 metres apart from people outside your cohort
  • avoid high-risk or prohibited activities
  • stay home and get tested if you are sick

What is a Cohort Group?

A COVID-19 cohort – also known as bubbles, circles, or safe squads – is a small group of the same people who can interact regularly without staying 2 metres apart.

A person in a cohort should avoid close contact with people outside of the cohort. Keeping the same people together, instead of mixing and mingling:

  • helps reduce the chances of getting sick
  • makes it easier to track exposure if someone does get sick

You should only belong to one core cohort.

Cohort types and recommended limits

Limit of 3 cohorts: your core household, your school, and one other sport or social cohort.

Young children who attend child care can be part of 4 cohorts.

What is a Core cohort?

Core cohorts can include your household and up to 15 other people you spend the most time with and are physically close to.

This usually includes people part of your regular routine:

  • household members
  • immediate family
  • closest tightknit social circle
  • people you have regular close contact with (co-parent who lives outside the household, a babysitter or caregiver)

Safety Recommendations

Core cohorts

Everyone in your core cohort should:

  • belong to only one core cohort
  • limit interactions with people outside the cohort
  • keep at least 2 meters from people outside the core cohort
  • wear a mask when closer than 2 metres with others wherever possible

Other cohort groups

When participating in other cohort groups, you should:

  • interact outdoors if possible – it’s safer than indoors
  • avoid closed spaces with poor ventilation, crowded places and close contact settings
  • be healthy and not show any COVID-19 symptoms (see the full symptom list)
  • have not travelled outside Canada in the last 14 days
  • keep track of where you go, when you are there, and who you meet:
    • this information will be helpful if someone is exposed to COVID-19
    • download the ABTraceTogether app, a mobile contact tracing app that helps to let you know if you’ve been exposed to COVID-19 – or if you’ve exposed others – while protecting your privacy

At-risk people

If you are at high risk of severe outcomes from COVID-19 and want to participate in a cohort, you should:

  • consider smaller cohorts, and
  • avoid cohorts with people who also participate in sports, performing and child care cohorts to minimize exposure potential

High risk groups include seniors and people with medical conditions like high blood pressure, heart disease, lung disease, cancer or diabetes. Find out how to assess your risk.

Before Post

After 15 years as a TV reporter with Global and CBC and as news director of RDTV in Red Deer, Duane set out on his own 2008 as a visual storyteller. During this period, he became fascinated with a burgeoning online world and how it could better serve local communities. This fascination led to Todayville, launched in 2016.

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Alberta

Alberta introduces bill banning sex reassignment surgery on minors

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Alberta Conservative Premier Danielle Smith followed through on a promised bill banning so-called ‘top and bottom’ surgeries for minors.

Alberta Conservative Premier Danielle Smith made good on her promise to protect kids from extreme transgender ideology after introducing a bill banning so-called “top and bottom” surgeries for minors.

“It is so important that all youth can enter adulthood equipped to make adult decisions. In order to do that, we need to preserve their ability to make those decisions, and that’s what we’re doing,” Smith said in a press release.

“The changes we’re introducing are founded on compassion and science, both of which are vital for the development of youth throughout a time that can be difficult and confusing.”

Bill 26, the Health Statutes Amendment Act, 2024 “reflects the government’s commitment to build a health care system that responds to the changing needs of Albertans,” the government says.

The bill will amend the Health Act to “prohibit regulated health professionals from performing sex reassignment surgeries on minors.”

It will also ban the “use of puberty blockers and hormone therapies for the treatment of gender dysphoria or gender incongruence” to kids 15 and under “except for those who have already commenced treatment and would allow for minors aged 16 and 17 to choose to commence puberty blockers and hormone therapies for gender reassignment and affirmation purposes with parental, physician and psychologist approval.”

Alberta Minister of Health Adriana LaGrange, the bill’s sponsor, said the province’s legislative priorities include “implementing policy changes to continue our refocusing work, position our health care system to respond to pressures and public health emergencies, and to preserve choice for minors. These amendments reflect our dedication to ensuring our health care system meets the needs of every Albertan.”

Earlier this year, the United Conservative Party (UCP) provincial government under Smith announced  she would introduce the strong pro-family legislation that strengthens parental rights, protecting kids from life-altering, so-called “top and bottom” surgeries as well as other extreme forms of transgender ideology.

With Smith’s UCP holding a majority in the provincial legislature, the passage of Bill 26 is almost certain.

While Smith has done far more than predecessor Jason Kenney to satisfy social conservatives, she has been mostly soft on social issues such as abortion and has publicly expressed pro-LGBT views, telling Jordan Peterson that conservatives must embrace homosexual “couples” as “nuclear families.”

This weekend, thousands of UCP members will gather for the party’s annual general meeting, where Smith’s leadership will be voted on along with many other pro-freedom and family policy proposals from members. Smith is expected to pass her leadership review vote with a large majority.

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Alberta

Alberta court upholds conviction of Pastor Artur Pawlowski for preaching at Freedom Convoy protest

Published on

From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

Lawyers argued that Pastor Artur Pawlowski’s sermon was intended to encourage protesters to find a peaceful solution to the blockade, but the statement was characterized as a call for mischief.

An Alberta Court of Appeal ruled that Calgary Pastor Artur Pawlowski is guilty of mischief for his sermon at the Freedom Convoy-related border protest blockade in February 2022 in Coutts, Alberta.

On October 29, Alberta Court of Appeal Justice Gordon Krinke sentenced the pro-freedom pastor to 60 days in jail for “counselling mischief” by encouraging protesters to continue blocking Highway 4 to protest COVID mandates.

“A reasonable person would understand the appellant’s speech to be an active inducement of the illegal activity that was ongoing and that the appellant intended for his speech to be so understood,” the decision reads.

Pawlowski addressed a group of truckers and protesters blocking entrance into the U.S. state of Montana on February 3, the fifth day of the Freedom Convoy-styled protest. He encouraged the protesters to “hold the line” after they had reportedly made a deal with Royal Canadian Mounted Police to leave the border crossing and travel to Edmonton.

“The eyes of the world are fixed right here on you guys. You are the heroes,” Pawlowski said. “Don’t you dare go breaking the line.”

After Pawlowski’s sermon, the protesters remained at the border crossing for two additional weeks. While his lawyers argued that his speech was made to encourage protesters to find a peaceful solution to the blockade, the statement is being characterized as a call for mischief.

Days later, on February 8, Pawlowski was arrested – for the fifth time – by an undercover SWAT team just before he was slated to speak again to the Coutts protesters.

He was subsequently jailed for nearly three months for what he said was for speaking out against COVID mandates, the subject of all the Freedom Convoy-related protests.

In Krinke’s decision, he argued that Pawlowski’s sermon incited the continuation of the protest, saying, “The Charter does not provide justification to anybody who incites a third party to commit such crimes.”

“While the appellant is correct that peaceful, lawful and nonviolent communication is entitled to protection, blockading a highway is an inherently aggressive and potentially violent form of conduct, designed to intimidate and impede the movement of third parties,” he wrote.

Pawlowski was released after the verdict. He has already spent 78 days in jail before the trial.

Pawlowski is the first Albertan to be charged for violating the province’s Critical Infrastructure Defence Act (CIDA), which was put in place in 2020 under then-Premier Jason Kenney.

The CIDA, however, was not put in place due to COVID mandates but rather after anti-pipeline protesters blockaded key infrastructure points such as railway lines in Alberta a few years ago.

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