OLDS — The town’s emergency management team is being asked to look into the pros and cons of the federal and provincial COVID-19 tracing apps.
Councillors Heather Ryan and Mary Jane Harper raised the idea in response to a letter and accompanying resolution from the City of Cold Lake.
Chief administrative officer Michael Merritt promised to ask director of emergency management Brian Powell and his team to look into the matter.
The Cold Lake council's resolution said as of Nov. 4 last year, eight provinces and territories had made the federal tracing app available to residents in their jurisdiction and that as of that date, more than five million Canadians had downloaded it.
So the city called on the Alberta government to make the federal app available for download by residents of this province.
The letter noted Cold Lake is close to Saskatchewan and many of that province’s residents are utilizing the federal app when in the community. Many people at the nearby Cold Lake air base use that app as well.
The letter said the fact that the Alberta government has developed a different tracing app has “caused concerns relating to provincial coordination and potential confusion between different applications.”
“It is our hope that a solution may be found that would allow the government of Alberta to enable the federal government’s application, or to harmonize the Alberta tracing application with the federal one,” the letter said.
“The city feels that the more Albertans who voluntarily download and use a tracing application capable of operating across all provinces, the quicker Albertans can react to information and assist with curbing the spread of the COVID-19 virus, which will assist in quicker economic recovery, efforts,” it concluded.
Copies of the letter and resolution were sent to Premier Jason Kenney and several other government officials as well as the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association and all municipalities in the province.
Merritt said it didn’t appear the City of Cold Lake was looking for any specific action from Olds or any other municipality.
Harper said in any case, maybe Powell should examine the issue to see if the town should support Cold Lake’s resolution.
Ryan echoed that thought.
“That’s what I was hoping that we could do because I have had a couple of people talk to me about this; just some general conversations that I’ve had and there seems to be a bit of confusion between these two different apps and it might be nice if we would all get on the same page,” Ryan said.
Merritt said he’ll pass that message on.
“I know in the past, the province has indicated that there’s a difference and they would like to maintain theirs, based on their tracing protocols,” he said.
