Fines not always required for COVID rule-breaking gatherings: Interior Health

Interior Health is still looking into who may or may not be fined after a number of events were held illegally over the past week in the region.

One was a houseboat party in Kelowna and another was a barrel race in Kamloops, both held during the Easter long weekend.

“With the houseboat operator, we’re still busy working with the operator,” Dr. Albert de Villiers, Interior Health’s chief medical health officer, said during a news briefing today, April 9. 

“It’s usually a process. We usually ask them to shut down voluntarily, which they actually did afterwards, and now we’re just busily going through the process of looking at options as to how to enforce them (rules). Sometimes it’s a fine and sometimes there are other things we can do as well to make sure they get the message and keep on following the orders.”

Key to whether tickets are issued is the matter of intent.

“It’s either you are deliberately doing this or maybe you just had a misunderstanding,” Dr. de Villiers said. “If it was a misunderstanding, sometimes you let people off with a warning. If it was a blatant: ‘Yes, we’re trying to push the limits and not following orders specifically,’ at that point we consider giving a fine instead.”

For the barrel race event in Kamloops, it appears it was a misunderstanding of the rules and the event was stopped as soon as the operator was told, Dr. de Villiers said.

It attracted participants from outside the Interior Health region but, as of yet, there has been no “increased disease” from the event, he said.

What may turn out to be a more blatant flouting of the rules are rallies being held in the region by People’s Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier, in part, to protest COVID lockdowns.

“We have been made aware of this and we are keeping a close eye on it as well and there are currently some orders that prohibit these things so, if the rules get broken they will eventually deal with that,” Dr. de Villiers said.

READ MORE: Interior Health 'keeping a close eye' on Maxime Bernier's tour


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Rob Munro

Rob Munro has a long history in journalism after starting an underground newspaper in Whitehorse called the Yukon Howl in 1980. He spent five years at the 100 Mile Free Press, starting in the darkroom, moving on to sports and news reporting before becoming the advertising manager. He came to Kelowna in 1989 as a reporter for the Kelowna Daily Courier, and spent the 1990s mostly covering city hall. For most of the past 20 years he worked full time for the union representing newspaper workers throughout B.C. He’s returned to his true love of being a reporter with a special focus on civic politics

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