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Thus, when asked which argument should carry more weight for decision-makers in determining what to do next, a significant segment say both the need to maintain public safety and the need to bolster an economy in free-fall should be considered equally. Further, nearly half say their own province should look to begin lifting restrictions within the next month or two.

The COVID-19 shutdown of 2020 has done one thing. In a nation that has been increasingly pulling itself apart on any number of policy spats, it has left us – for now – with precious little to substantively argue about. In their absence, it is not unhealthy to seek a vigorous debate about some of the most important short-term decisions our leaders will ever undertake.

Canada – or more specifically – the individual provinces – are going to have to figure out the appropriate paths forward on their own. Our traditional allies, the U.S. and U.K., have cemented their places as poster children for what not to do when a public health emergency arrives. They’re hardly going to be the jurisdictions that we follow on the way out of this mess.

And just as our arguments have been typically Canadian, so too are our priorities for resuming the lives we had to suspend. Asked what should be re-opened first in their communities, they put offices and places of work high on the list. But one item, emblematic of what we value most from coast to coast, was even higher. More than anything, the people of this country are most keen to regain full access to their natural, spectacular, stress reducing and zen-boosting parks.

Shachi Kurl is Executive Director of the Angus Reid Institute, a national, not-for-profit, non-partisan public opinion research foundation.