Island Health Chief Medical Health Officer Dr. Richard Stanwick is recommending Victoria’s byelection, scheduled to take place on April 4, be postponed until the COVID-19 pandemic is declared over.
The City of Victoria has been in touch with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing. Minister Selina Robinson would have to issue an order under the Local Government Act to postpone the byelection.
Nine people were campaigning to fill the council seat vacated by Laurel Collins after she was elected an NDP MP in October’s federal election.
Federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu says the government is preparing to ask people to cancel gatherings larger than 50 people.
She says the move comes as community transmission of COVID-19 has begun in Canada.
Hajdu says it is too early to say whether the measures taken to date have been successful in slowing the spread of the virus, known as “flattening the curve” but the intent is now to contain the cases as rapidly as possible.
B.C. health officials have already banned gatherings of 50 or more people to slow the transmission of COVID-19.
With files from The Canadian Press
CHEK News
