Calgary Mayor Says 'Pretty Much Nothing' Will Open Friday Since Stage 2 Is So Last Minute

Calgary isn't quite ready to move to the second stage of the relaunch. Stage 2 of Alberta's reopening plan kicks off on Friday, June 12. But Calgary's mayor, Naheed Nenshi, said that very few city facilities will open up by then. So there's going to be a delay for stage 2 in Calgary. 

A member of the press called into the city's press conference on Thursday, June 11 and asked how many city facilities will be reopening on Friday. They also asked the type of challenges the City of Calgary is currently facing in getting these places up and running once again. 

"The easy answer to your question is, pretty much nothing is opening tomorrow," he said. 

"Some of those dry pads and outdoors will be available but not much else," the mayor said. 

He then went on to explain why there's going to be a delay in reopening all these places. Staff will have to be brought back to work after a period of change. 

"You can't turn around on a dime," he said. 

He also noted, "We only actually received the guidelines, which were pages and pages long, for how to operate gyms, pools, and arenas safely a couple of days ago. So it's going to take some time to get that all in place."

The Mayor mentioned that he is not criticizing the province and that everything is moving quickly. 

"When the province announces on Tuesday, you just can't have all those people hired by Friday," he said. 

Under stage 2 of the relaunch strategy, gyms, recreation centres, outdoor pools, community halls, movie theatres and more can reopen their doors to the public.  

Mayor Nenshi said that Calgary Recreation is working on a phased approach where "the easy stuff they can open first and the hard stuff will take a little bit longer."

But "over the next few weeks," Calgarians can expect to see all their facilities operating at their "full COVID capacity," he said.  

Nenshi also discussed working with the provincial government on the relaunch strategy. "Their first announcement of the relaunch strategy took us a bit by surprise." 

He told the public that though the city of Calgary knew a couple of things beforehand, like the inclusion of gyms in stage 2 and the kick-off date, other aspects were not totally expected. 

"The lifting of the cap on places of worship, the addition of live theatre to the list," he said. 

Nenshi shared that by and large, the provincial government was cooperative with the city of Calgary. 

The Mayor also advised all locals to check out the City of Calgary website to get an idea of what is or is not opening the coming weekend.