No shinny?  Is nothing sacred?

In fact no, in the fight against Covid, shinny and even going to a packed midnight mass on Christmas Eve are not sacred.  They are not allowed.

And if recently declining case numbers in Alberta are an indication, that's a good thing.  Stricter provincial restrictions on activities including outdoor sports that result in close contact and crowded church services are having the desired effect.

After topping 1,800 cases a day near the beginning of December, the numbers have begun to decline.  By Tuesday the 22nd, 1,021 new cases were detected in the province.  That's still pretty high but at least the trend is in the right direction.

The current total death toll in the province has climbed close to 900.

And yet, Alberta is a hotbed of Covid restriction opponents.  They rant about their god-given rights and constitutional freedoms.  A hundred or so turn up regularly for anti-mask rallies.  They clog Twitter and social media with vaccine skepticism and transparently false assertions that Covid is just a bad flu.

In the past couple of days they have particularly rallied around a new poster boy, a 21-year-old Calgarian who was arrested after a confrontation with police over a shinny game.

Bylaw officers, after meeting some trouble trying to break up the game which had attracted a crowd of about 40, called in the police.

One player refused to vacate the ice, challenging the officers.  Police say he also refused to give his name.

The incident ended with the lad in the back of a police car after a forceful takedown.

Anti-restriction pundits and columnists thundered that all Canadians should decry an authoritarian state where a young man can be arrested for playing shinny.

Of course, he wasn't arrested for playing shinny, he was arrested for obstruction of an officer and resisting arrest.  Just playing shinny only gets you a ticket for violating health orders.

In a slightly more dignified altercation, a couple of fundamentalist churches and other complainants tried to get a judge to issue an injunction to roll back the provincial Covid rules as a violation of constitutional rights.

The Justice Centre for Constitutional Rights said the government is "cancelling Christmas" and there is no emergency beyond normal illness and death in the province.

Thank heaven, the judge refused to grant the injunction as not being in the public interest.

Churches in Alberta haven't actually been shuttered by the provincial government.  They can still operate at 15 per cent capacity.  And they can always hold services online.

But still a handful of fundamentalist churches are digging in their heels and packing the pews.  One northern Alberta pastor is preaching against "tyranny" from the pulpit and urging his congregation to defy restrictions.

But reasonable and science-based restrictions in a public health emergency are the exact opposite of a violation of rights and freedoms.  Alberta's declining case count ultimately ends with diminished fear of infection, long term illness and death.  Ask an elderly relative or a friend with diabetes and high blood pressure if a time-limited set of preventive measures are "tyranny".

Surely most of the population would rather skip a crowded church service than threaten the lives of their neighbours.  Surely Albertans bent on some outdoor exercise are willing to put down the hockey sticks and glide around the rink at a safe distance from fellow skaters.

Surely sounder reasoning and cooler heads will rethink these libertarian arguments parsing the limit of the state's right to tell us what to do.

It's time to consider what actually should be sacred — the safety and health of our loved ones and neighbours.

Photo Credit: Toronto Star