Timmins police starting to issue more tickets for emergency order violations

The Timmins Police Service says the days of generous discretion and an educational approach to confronting COVID-19 violations are over.

While a number of police services throughout the province have reiterated a commitment to an educational approach in recent weeks, Timmins police say stricter enforcement is now necessary, thanks to a spike in local COVID-19 cases, and more reports of people breaking the rules.

"Basically, this has been in the last couple of weeks — the mid-March to early April numbers that we kept on receiving — the spike in COVID numbers locally garnered our attention and merited a more severe police response in relation to COVID violations," said Marc Depatie, spokesperson with Timmins police.

"In speaking with colleagues of mine in other northern communities, the overall compliance rate, and the co-operation we did enjoy with the local community has since denigrated to a certain degree."

Depatie didn't have the official number of people who have been ticketed so far, but pointed to three separate instances as examples.

"Five persons were found to be in a vehicle from the Bradford area. We did a wellness check at a residence and found that two persons there were in obvious breach of the provincial statutes related to COVID," he said.

"And we charged three local persons who were found to be in a motor vehicle. The purpose of their trip was not substantive enough to justify their not complying with the stay at home order that is currently in place."

Depatie says police are still taking into consideration factors such as people experiencing homelessness, or other factors that may affect someone's ability to fully comply with the stay at home order. 

"Every situation is unique unto itself. So in those cases where somebody should be afflicted with some other form of challenge, be it illiteracy, homelessness, drug addiction, those factors are obviously taken into consideration," he said.

"We don't want to be the agency that is acting in such a robotic fashion that we don't take these things into consideration."

But Depaties notes that, when a violation is deemed to be overt and purposeful, police are enforcing the rules.

A charge laid under the Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act carries an $880 fine. 

Listen to the interview here.