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Aujourd’hui, on annonce que des contrôles policiers sont mis en place pour protéger l’Outaouais. Décision prise sur recommandation de la santé publique. Décision difficile, mais nécessaire. On va y arriver, faut pas lâcher! Détails 👉 https://t.co/ng3Uj6meGx #polqc #polgat — Mathieu Lacombe (@lacombemathieu) April 1, 2020

“We’ve seen what’s happening in Europe, what’s happened in China and I think it’s a good time for tougher measures if we want to protect our people,” Pedneaud-Jobin said in an interview.

Quebec reported 4,611 confirmed cases of the coronavirus as of 1 p.m. Wednesday. Of those, 64 were in the Outaouais.

Ottawa-Gatineau functions as a single region and the border had thousands of transportation trips each day before the pandemic.

Photo by Jean Levac / Postmedia News

According to the federal government, the five interprovincial crossings carried close to 150,000 vehicles and 9,000 pedestrians and cyclists daily in 2017.

Travellers from Quebec are still freely able to cross into Ottawa via Gatineau.

The City of Ottawa has no intention to start similar checkpoints on its side of the border, Mayor Jim Watson said.

“The whole issue came about very quickly and we don’t have a lot of answers and I’m still not entirely sure of the rationale, except that everyone wants everyone to minimize their travel,” Watson said in an interview, noting that the Quebec measures would still allow people to enter the province for essential services, going to work and visiting family members.

Watson and Pedneaud-Jobin last week teamed up on a joint announcement to discourage unnecessary interprovincial travel.

On Wednesday, Watson said he senses that people won’t have a problem getting to Quebec as long as they have a rational reason for doing so.

The National Capital Commission last week stopped giving many of Ottawa’s outdoor enthusiasts a reason to cross the border when it closed Gatineau Park in response to the pandemic.