Canada stores start reopening after COVID-19 lockdown

by Michel Comte

In Ottawa’s ByWard Market neighborhood, shopkeepers were busy readying for an influx of shoppers, dusting off wares and adjusting to new rules.

“I’m smiling behind the mask,” declares the owner of a clothing store in the popular outdoor market, which was permitted to reopen Tuesday along with many shops across Canada as authorities began easing a two-month lockdown.

Ontario — Canada’s most populous province — is allowing stores with street access to reopen, along with hospital surgery rooms, dog parks and golf courses.

Pat Phythian, owner of Ottawa clothing store Frou Frou, said she was “eager to get back to work” after two months off.

The lockdown was “so boring,” she told AFP.

Like others, Phythian also took a financial hit over the temporary closure of her store.

But, she added, “I just really missed the people.”

“It’s like the first day back at school.”

(Schools won’t actually reopen in Ontario until September, Premier Doug Ford announced Tuesday.)

“I’m so happy you’re back. We missed you,” says a passerby.

Standing at the door of her shop, Phythian asks Paul Clarmont — who sells vintage clothes next door — for help figuring out regulations in this new retail landscape: can she set up a table and two chairs out front for customers, or only one chair?

“I don’t want to get fined,” she comments.

Each of Canada’s 13 provinces and territories is lifting restrictions at different paces and to varying degrees.

British Columbia allowed restaurants and pubs to reopen on Tuesday, for example, while Saskatchewan went further, giving the greenlight to shopping malls, barbers and farmers’ markets.

Hardest-hit by the pandemic, Quebec’s largest city Montreal won’t allow retailers to open until next week. The province has recorded nearly half of all 80,000 COVID-19 cases and 6,000 deaths in Canada. (AFP)

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