Opposition slams Ford for sending 'dangerous message' by ending state of emergency

Lockdown ends at midnight for most of the north Stay-at-home orders will finally end for all but one northern Ontario health unit at midnight as regions return to the reopening framework.

TORONTO — NDP Leader Andrea Horwath says that the Ford government is sending a "dangerous message" with its decision to lift the state of emergency and to begin gradually lifting public health restrictions in some regions.

The state of emergency expired at midnight and the stay-at-home order will be lifted in three public health units in eastern Ontario as of 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday, allowing a wide swath of business to reopen in those jurisdictions.

The stay-at-home order will then be lifted in an additional 25 public health units on Feb. 16 and in Toronto, Peel and York regions on Feb. 22. Once the stay-at-home order is lifted the regions will subsequently be placed in the appropriate colour-coded category in the existing five-tier reopening framework.

At the same time, retail businesses will be allowed to reopen in all areas of the province, including the so-called hotspots, after the Ford government changed the list of permitted activities in regions placed in the grey lockdown tier

"Doug Ford’s decision to end the state of emergency and send the signal that everything is business as usual and that Ontario will be opened up significantly in two weeks time is really a dangerous message for Ontarians," Horwath said during a press conference at Queen's Park on Tuesday morning. "We know that this government seems to make the same mistakes over and over again when it comes to its response to COVID-19 and we have seen the government send mixed messages in terms of its communications (before). We have heard over and over again one thing while the government demonstrates something different."

COVID-19 transmission has now been on the wane for weeks with the rolling seven-day average of new cases dropping from 3,405 one month ago to 1,367 as of today.

Horwath, however, pointed out in a news release that the Ford government waited until case counts were much lower to begin reopening the province in the spring.

In fact, on the day that regions began moving into Stage 2 on June 12 there were only 182 new cases provincewide. The Ministry of Health reported 1,022 new cases of the disease caused by the novel coronavirus today, including 10 new cases of COVID variants.

“I’ve talked to a lot of people and they are getting frustrated. They deserve to know that ending this lockdown means we won’t ever have to do another lockdown,” Horwath said on Tuesday. “People should be able to rely on the government making the investments necessary to prevent us from going into another lockdown but we’re not seeing that and I can tell you if I was premier I would be doing this a lot differently. I would be certainly moving a lot slower when it comes to reopening while at the same time providing supports to small business and individuals who need help to continue to get through the measures.”

The province has said that it will have an "emergency brake system" in place that will allow officials to take "immediate action" if there is a rapid acceleration of COVID-19 transmission in a given region.

Ford also said Monday that he understands “we are not out of the woods yet” and promised to “take further action as necessary” should we “see the numbers spike again.”

“While we are seeing our numbers trend in the right direction, our situation remains precarious as the variants of concern remain a serious risk,” Dr. David Williams, Ontario's chief medical officer of health, said in a news release.