UPDATE: A motion to reconsider was brought forward and Canmore Council ended up passing Third Reading this afternoon. By a 6-1 vote, Canmore’s municipal mask bylaw has been rescinded.

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ROB: On Tuesday morning, Canmore Council met to discuss a number of things, one of those being the municipal mask mandate. I believe Canmore is the only municipality left in Alberta that still has one of these?

TANYA: That is the information I have. Banff already has rescinded its bylaw, and Calgary as well.

ROB: Normally this would be a straightforward thing. They said yes or they said no. This decision, however, wasn’t entirely straightforward. What actually happened?

TANYA: This is going to become very procedural. The motion to rescind passed. It was a 5-2 vote in favor with Councilors Joanna McCallum and Esme Comfort opposed. You need three motions of a bylaw to be officially approved, but if you want to vote on all three motions in one meeting you have to do another motion that must pass unanimously by Council to move to third reading. Now, that did not pass unanimously, with Councilors McCallum and Comfort opposed, which means Council is now looking at scheduling a special meeting on Thursday to pass third reading. At that point, the mask bylaw will no longer be in effect.

ROB: This sounds very unusual to me. Normally, it’s my impression that even if a Councilor is opposed to something, they wouldn’t necessarily oppose moving to third reading.

TANYA: There were some really passionate arguments by those Councilors who were opposed, talking about the majority of the population in our community who are under 40, who have kids, who are service industry workers, who aren’t necessarily within the demographics when it comes to second vaccinations. Just concern for their wellbeing and wanting to continue to have additional precautionary measures in place for them.

ROB: I totally get the rationale behind some of those arguments, and I have huge respect for both Councilors McCallum and Comfort, but I have to wonder if delaying third reading is just sort of delaying the inevitable by two days. I mean, what do they hope to gain?

TANYA: It wasn’t really debated in terms of why they didn’t vote to go to third reading. It pretty much is just holding this situation up on a technicality. There has to be a whole other meeting. Like, that’s a whole thing that has to happen on Thursday morning.

ROB: So Thursday morning we should have a final result, but for now Canmore’s mandatory mask bylaw remains in effect.

Filed under: Canmore, Canmore Council, covid-19, masks, Mountain Insider