BARRHEAD - County of Barrhead council cannot decide what is and is not considered an essential service outside of its municipal organization.
That is what councillors decided during their June 7 meeting, where the Emmanuel Reformed Church and the Association for Reformed Political Action (ARPA) Canada asked council to declare churches an essential service (through two identical letters) and lobby the province to do likewise, citing the fact it wasn't in their legislative jurisdiction.
ARPA is a Christian-based, political advocacy organization with the mission of educating, equipping, and encouraging Reformed Christians to political action and bring a biblical perspective to civic authorities.
During the pandemic, the organization has applied for and received intervenor status (a non-party that is allowed to join an ongoing litigation process) in cases where churches were challenging the right to operate against public health regulations in multiple provinces.
Later in the meeting, councillors instructed administration to direct them to the appropriate contacts, such as Municipal Affairs, while expressing that council recognizes the role that churches play in the greater community and the value they add. The county will also send a letter restating the latter to the province.
The letters from the Emmanuel Church and ARPA state that churches are not on the province's list of essential services, and as such, during the pandemic, they were expected to abide by the public health restrictions the same as any other public events and social gatherings.
"This included restrictions on worship services and other services offered by churches, such as pastoral visits," the letters stated.
The letter added that the church is more than a community, saying the ability to gather and worship was "exactly what Canadians need as they navigated through the pandemic."
They also said that churches use the services to collect offerings to support their operations and help those in need in their congregations and the greater community.
Reeve Doug Drozd noted, in some ways, that the request is similar to other requests for council declarations, referring to Seniors' Week.
"In other respects, making this declaration could have implications if something happens and we are put into a situation of pandemic public health restrictions," he said.
Coun. Paul Properzi, while recognizing the significant role of churches play, said he did not consider them essential.
However, Coun. Jared Stoik said he did consider them essential.
Coun. Walter Preugschas suggested that before doing anything, they should investigate what other municipalities' policies are, noting they can't be the only council a church or organizations like ARPA have approached.
"There's not much point if we are the only ones declaring it," he said.
County manager Debbie Oyarzun interjected, saying that while the county could potentially advocate on a group's behalf, she did not feel they could declare another organization an essential service, noting it wasn't council's jurisdiction.
"At the very beginning of the pandemic, we had to look at essential services, but those are ours," she said. "We typically can't declare something or someone else as an essential service. We can support, recommend somebody else's declaration. But I'm not sure the county should be declaring someone else's external organization or operation as an essential service because it isn't in our control."
Deputy reeve Marvin Schatz asked who in the province would administration recommend that the church and ARPA send their letters to?
Oyarzun suggested they should start with Municipal Affairs and the Provincial Operations Centre (POC).
Drozd suggested they include the chief medical officer of health office.
"They were the ones making recommendations?" he asked.
Oyarzun said while that was true, "It goes higher than that."
Drozd asked if any other church denominations had started similar campaigns.
Council was not aware of any.
