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“This gives us the ability in a controlled and respectful way to ensure that we are supporting our vulnerable community to move to the locations that are appropriate based on the conditions they are in,” he said.

The powers are granted for a period of seven days, at which point they can be renewed. Council can also reconvene before those seven days are up and rescind the state of local emergency.

This is the first time the city has made an emergency declaration. The move comes one day after Alberta’s chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw announced a death in the Edmonton area due to COVID-19, the first in Alberta.

Council unanimously backed the city’s request for these unprecedented powers and Mayor Don Iveson said it wasn’t a decision that was made lightly. The city held off on making the declaration earlier this week.

“We are doing this so that we have the powers, should we need them, to keep people safe,” he said. “This is an unprecedented situation for our city.”

Laughlin said he doesn’t anticipate needing to enforce other measures in the near future, but said price controls on essential supplies is being monitored closely.

The province passed a bill Friday morning to grant authority for municipalities to operate their own emergency responses in conjunction with the provincial powers already in place.