Officials scrambled to clarify province's June mask order, documents show

New Brunswick's first attempt to make masks mandatory in all indoor spaces was marked by confusing wording and a scramble to clarify the requirement on an unusually busy Saturday, according to documents obtained by CBC News.

On June 6 a senior civil servant drove three hours to get the public safety minister to sign a clarified COVID-19 order so it could be posted by the end of the day.

It was fixing wording that had provoked questions and complaints from some New Brunswickers.

One cabinet minister soothed cranky constituents by telling them the original Friday order was not what the government had decided.

'I don't know what happened'

Public Safety deputy minister Mike Comeau said the episode was a simple misunderstanding and the wording of order did not reflect cabinet's decision.

He points out the emergency order published June 5 was the 15th of 38 different versions of the order between the start of the pandemic and today.

"Occasionally ... after an order is published, someone that was part of the conversation says, 'I'm not sure that order reflects the conversation that we had,'" he said in a rare interview.

"You have another round of conversations and sometimes you adjust the order."

He said he didn't recall if Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Jennifer Russell was recommending a stricter mask order at that time. 

CBC News obtained emails and documents using the the Right to Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

Face masks are widely accepted as a simple and effective way of limiting the spread of COVID-19, and in mid-May the New Brunswick government made them mandatory in indoor spaces where distancing wasn't possible.

The Friday, June 5 order went further, saying that effective June 9 they would have to be worn by "everyone who enters any building that is open to the general public."

Before the weekend was over, the order had been reversed.

"I don't know what happened," said Green Party leader David Coon, who sits on the government's all-party COVID-19 committee. "I was quite surprised to see the actual order when it came out, so something went astray in the process, that's for sure."

New mask order requirements

The all-party committee, made up of Premier Blaine Higgs, key ministers and the leaders of the other three parties in the legislature, discussed the stricter mask order on May 27 and 28, according to the documents.

The actual decisions made at those meetings were subject to cabinet confidentiality rules and were redacted from the official records released to CBC.

On June 4, officials added a line to the new requirement to put the "onus on individuals rather than directly on businesses and Worksafe," the government agency overseeing workplace COVID rules. 

"Effective June 9, 2020, everyone who enters any building that is open to the general public must on entering wear a face covering that covers their mouth and nose," it said.

There were exceptions, including for young children and those at daycares. 

This full masking requirement came in, briefly, I think to everyone's surprise at the time, because it was premature.- David Coon, Green Party leader

The order also defined "open to the general public" as a building that is "open to anyone to enter, as opposed to open only to employers, persons making deliveries, and/or persons expressly invited to enter."

That afternoon, Danielle Phillips, a senior communications director in the Executive Council Office, told Comeau that "people are asking" whether the mask was only required inside if you couldn't maintain physical distancing.

They agreed to add extra wording to say the requirement only applied "when outside of the home, and in any location in which physical distancing of 2 metres is not possible."

Cabinet okayed the new order on June 5, and that afternoon, the province published it online and issued a press release describing the new mask order.

Seeking clarification

Progressive Conservative MLAs started hearing from constituents.

Some were looking for clarification: "Does this mean facemasks are required in public buildings period or only if 'social distancing' cannot be maintained?'" asked Grady Curtis in a comment on MLA Jake Stewart's Facebook page.

Others were simply opposed to the idea. Sheree Dawn Carr told Fundy-The Isles-Saint John West MLA Andrea Anderson-Mason on her Facebook page that wearing a mask "physically makes me ill" and called the idea "asinine." 

Anderson-Mason responded: "the announcement didn't reflect what had been decided."

That night, Comeau said, it became clear to officials that the wording in the order didn't match what the cabinet had intended. 

"What I recall happening on June 5 and 6 is the feeling by some of the people consulted leading up to that June 5 that the order, as it was written and signed, didn't accurately reflect the conversation that they participated in." 

'Does that capture the intent?'

The PC cabinet and caucus held a rare Saturday meeting via conference call at 9:45 a.m. on June 6.

Comeau sent proposed changes to the wording of the order to Cheryl Hansen, the clerk of the executive council and the province's top civil servant, removing the sentence that said "everyone who enters" a public building "must" wear a mask.

"Does that capture the intent?" he asked in a 10:32 a.m. email.

Retired Carleton MLA Stewart Fairgrieve, who chaired the PC caucus at the time, says he remembers "a period when all parties thought we'd gone over the limit" but isn't sure it was the June mask order.

"I remember being part of those discussions and advocating that it be walked back," he said.

Higgs's deputy chief of staff Wes McLean also emailed Coon to ask if they could speak by phone "regarding mask issues." 

Coon says he wanted a requirement that people always carry a mask with them so they could put them on when they needed to.

"Instead this full masking requirement came in, briefly, I think to everyone's surprise at the time, because it was premature," he says. "Then it got pulled." 

"Something messed up somewhere," he adds.

Mask order reversed

At 1:14 p.m. Comeau again emailed Hansen again to check on changes to the order.

"Sorry I'm rushing," he added. "I'm driving 90 minutes to get Carl's signature and 90 back, before we can get a revised order posted." 

He was referring to then-Public Safety Minister Carl Urquhart, who was at a family cottage in the Belleisle area. "The minister has to sign the original, in person," Comeau said.

"He happened to getting a day off for the first time in a while, so I volunteered to go there because the work was there."

Hansen's response was brief: "What we had before." The wording was to revert back to what it had been before June 5. 

Within the next hour, Higgs approved the new wording, according to another email.

At 5:57 p.m. that evening, after his three-hour round-trip drive, Comeau scanned the new, signed order to communications staff to post online. New Brunswick's stricter mandatory mask order had been reversed before it could even take effect.

Three months later, with an outbreak at Notre-Dame Manoir in Moncton underway and the first reported case in what would prove to be an extended outbreak in the Restigouche area, the province again announced a mandatory mask requirement for all indoor spaces.

This time it lasted.