Alberta-wide mask mandate would create backlash, Premier Kenney says

Premier Jason Kenney said Alberta doesn’t have a province-wide mask mandate because he thinks rural Albertans would ignore it.

Kenney made the remarks on a Facebook Live Wednesday evening where he took questions from Albertans about the new COVID-19 safety measures announced by the province on Tuesday.

READ MORE: Changes to visitation in certain AHS facilities announced as Alberta reaches 500 COVID-19 deaths

When asked in a written question “why rural Albertans don’t need a mask mandate,” Kenney said about 90 per cent of Albertans are already under some sort of a mask mandate, brought in by municipalities.

He also said the majority of confirmed COVID-19 cases are in the Edmonton and Calgary areas.

“Imagine you’ve got a couple of guys working in a big barn way up in the MD of Opportunity, hundreds of kilometres from the closest COVID hot zone,” Kenney said.

“Do you really think those guys are going to put on a mask because I asked them to or I tell them to?”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "Do you really think those guys are going to put on a mask because I asked them to or I tell them to?"

“Do you think the RCMP are going to go out there and write a ticket if they’re not? I think we need to be a little realistic about this.”

2:04 Jason Kenney says mandatory mask would trigger backlash and lower usage

“I think we continue to encourage mask wearing in crowded areas where people cannot physically distance, in work places where it makes sense, particularly in areas of high transmission, but that we not create a condition where there’s a backlash.”

Kenney also said that a rural MLA in the legislature told him that he’s noticed more people are wearing masks in the local rural grocery store.

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“(He said) the percentage of people wearing masks has gone up increasingly over the past few weeks to about 50 per cent now. It wasn’t like that at all in the summer,” Kenney said.

“But he said, ‘You know a lot of these folks who are doing that now, they’d take it off the moment the government tells them to wear it.’

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "But he said, 'You know a lot of these folks who are doing that now, they'd take it off the moment the government tells them to wear it.'

“Why would we do something that is counterproductive?”

0:59 COVID-19: Alberta makes masks mandatory in all indoor workplaces in Calgary, Edmonton and surrounding areas

Dr. Amy Tan is a family physician and an organizer for Masks4Canada.

She said Alberta’s lack of a province-wide mask mandate sets the wrong example.

“We need to be led by science in this global pandemic,” Tan said.

“This is a public health emergency and the science is clear about mask mandates that they protect the people.”

6:39 Answering your questions about wearing masks