Do no harm

Ernie Margetson occasionally drives a Volvo station wagon. Ernie serves as a council member for Hillier and was running errands last week when he noticed a car was following him. He stopped to drop envelopes in a mailbox. The following car quickly turned and pulled up in front of the Volvo, the driver staring at the front license plate. The agitated driver asked where Ernie lived, and why he was visiting here and putting this community at risk? The councillor declined to answer his roadside interrogator. The agitated citizen then said he was taking a photo of the plate number and sending it to police observing, via the licence plate frame, that his Volvo had been purchased in Toronto and advised him that he should “go home asshole.”

Is this who we have become? Have we led folks to believe that they are empowered to accost strangers and seek to constrain their liberty? How did this happen?

We are afraid. Afraid for our well-being, and that of our family, and our vulnerable neighbours. We are afraid, too, for our livelihoods and life after the pandemic. Fear leads us, however, to make mistakes. Unforgivable mistakes. Irreparable mistakes. Fear is as likely to propel us toward harm than safety.

Last week, council debated a resolution hastily prepared by Mayor Steve Ferguson asking the province to discourage travel to Prince Edward County during the pandemic. Seemingly innocuous on its surface, this resolution, nevertheless, defines the traveller as a threat. The enemy. The other.

There was no consultation. Not with the community, not the economic sector, nor it seems with his fellow council members. The resolution showed up on Wednesday, seeking council’s speedy approval on Thursday.

Nor is there evidence that folks coming to the County are bringing COVID-19 here. The Hastings Prince Edward Public Health Unit has recorded between five and nine confirmed cases of the virus in the County. The vast majority of the cases in the Hastings Prince Edward region have been transmitted in the community—rather than by travel.

Stalker man would have had more success in scolding a virus-carrier had he randomly accosted folks on the street.

It seems Mayor Ferguson’s chief rationale in identifying the traveller threat was based on the fact that the County’s population is old and therefore more vulnerable. Also, our local health care capacity could be overwhelmed if the infection rate increased dramatically.

Both are true. But neither is evidence of a threat. Fear cannot be the driver of municipal lawmaking. It is dangerous and self-defeating.

As Councillor Andreas Bolik observed, “It is all too easy to fall into a pattern of autocratic decision-making when there is the smell of fear in the air.”

This becomes a critical issue as we begin to emerge from isolation—in small and incremental ways. Will we see municipalities and other local agencies seek to extend their authority as federal and provincial governments retreat? Attempting to wall off their communities? Joined by a private army of enforcers? Will we deputize these folks or simply let them roam around the County on their own identifying and confronting travellers? Perhaps we will post folks at the bridges and ferry to advise travellers to turn around and go home? Or compel them to pay for a sticker identifying them as an outsider, a threat.

We need folks to continue to follow the rules. But the more the rules appear arbitrary and heavy-handed the less effective they will be—and in doing so lead to erosion of this collective effort.

Councillor Janice Maynard also worries about raising expectations in the community. And of unintended consequences. Particularly between those who are unable or unwilling to parse the distinction between advice and decree. Ill-considered measures taken by this municipality will serve to inflame the already toxic division rampant on social media. Such signals from council will further empower an army of snitches and vigilantes who believe they are working for the greater good.

Council correctly deferred his proposal back to Mayor Ferguson to be reworked. It will come back to council on Thursday. The debate will be livestreamed beginning at 3 p.m.

Cooler heads must prevail.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca