Chatham-Kent councillor Mark Authier plans to bring in a motion at the next Chatham-Kent council meeting to cancel the municipality’s mask mandate.
Chatham-Kent’s mask mandate bylaw was brought in on August 14, 2020 in a bid to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. The bylaw mandates that masks are to be worn in public indoor spaces.
The municipal rules became moot in October, 2020 when the province brought in its own regulations.
“When we put the mask mandate in, the province didn’t have one,” Mayor Darrin Canniff says. “It’s redundant, so we’ll have some discussion about it, who knows what council’s going to decide but that’s what we’ll be deciding on, do we need to have a mandate municipally or not.”
A removal of the municipal bylaw would require a majority vote to pass.
However, regardless of what happens locally, the provincial mask mandate remains in effect for now.