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A Halifax woman says a neighbour called the police on her in a misguided attempt to enforce self-isolation of her and her family.

We are granting her anonymity because she fears going public will bring more unwelcome attention to her situation.

I spoke to her on the phone Monday evening. She told me that Monday afternoon, she was playing with her young child in her backyard. Her mother came out and asked to use her phone; that’s because her mother doesn’t have a phone. The police were at the front door but said they could only speak via phone, apparently for fear of contracting COVID-19.

The backstory: The woman’s mother had travelled back to Canada from California, landing in Guelph on March 13. Premier Stephen McNeil’s order that all international travellers self-isolate went into effect on March 16. The woman’s mother, however, had difficulty lining up flights, and wasn’t able to fly from Guelph to Halifax until March 20. McNeil’s order that all people travelling from other provinces must self-isolate became effective March 23.

Even then, the woman’s mother kept mostly at home. Since her mother’s arrival back home, “we didn’t go anywhere at all, the whole family, not to the grocery store, not to the gas station, not anywhere, except for walks on the sidewalk,” she said.

The woman felt that in these difficult times, it would be a good idea for people to create a sort of “outdoor art gallery,” by putting decorations in their front windows so people walking by on the sidewalk could get a little joy.

“I printed up some flyers, and we went by door-to-door and used a little piece of tape to attach the flyers to people’s front door so we didn’t have to touch their mailboxes,” the woman told me. Her mother came along for the walk, but never touched the flyers and stayed on the sidewalk as the woman went up to the houses to tape the flyers.

When the police arrived, they told the woman over the phone that she and entire family must stay inside the house for 14 days from the date of her mother’s arrival (March 20). “They told me we couldn’t go in the backyard, we couldn’t leave the house. And if they got a call that we had left the house, we’d be fined $1,000.”

That order from the police contradicts the official orders about self-isolation from the province. To begin with, the mother’s date of arrival to Canada predates the order for self-isolation for international travellers, and the mother’s arrival in Nova Scotia predates the order for isolation for inter-provincial travellers.

More to the point, however, even if the mother had been restricted by those orders, the orders do not apply to the rest of the family unless the traveller is sick or has tested positive for COVID-19.

Dr. Robert Strang’s order for self-isolation for international travellers reads:

Effective March 15, 2020, all persons residing in or present in the Province of Nova Scotia who travel or have travelled outside Canada must self-isolate or self-quarantine, as the case may be, in accordance with Clause 3 (a.) to (d.) on the day you return to Canada.

Strang’s order for self-isolation for interprovincial travellers reads:

Effective March 23, 2020 at 6:00 a.m., all persons residing in or present in the Province of Nova Scotia who: