Montrealers say end of curfew offers a ‘new feeling of freedom’

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Nicolas figures he’s going to let loose once Quebec’s curfew ends.

“I think it’s a good thing and I’m really going to be partying,” said Nicolas, who didn’t want to give his last name to a Gazette reporter. The young man was lounging in Jeanne-Mance Park earlier this week.

The curfew began Jan. 9 and was originally supposed to be a 28-day measure. It is set to be lifted at 5 a.m. on Friday.

“I hope I don’t get too drunk,” Nicolas continued. “But yeah, I think we’re going to drink a lot with my friends. I’m just happy that we’re going to be free again and not have that thing over our heads. I feel good about it.”

Talking with folks in Jeanne-Mance Park, which has been the site of some big gatherings since the weather has warmed up, most shared Nicolas’s enthusiasm about the lifting of the curfew, though he was the only one who openly talked about celebrating the change with a few too many drinks.

Many voiced a kind of grudging acknowledgement that the curfew might have been necessary to slow down the spread of COVID in Quebec, but some felt Premier François Legault overstepped.

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“I think it’s a measure that worked very well at first, but it went on too long,” said Amani Mahroug, who came here from France to study at the Université de Montréal. “I’m not even sure how effective it was. I’m not sure there are studies to prove that it was really that useful. It was really authoritarian. What I am liking is the new feeling of freedom. Now I can spend more time with, say, a friend I haven’t seen for a long time and I don’t have to worry about having to pay a hefty fine.”

But some are willing to live with the return of the curfew if cases once again spike upward.

“I’m happy that it’s ending, but I wouldn’t be disappointed if it came back to prevent another Ontario-esque explosion,” said Keith Heistermann, who was having a small socially distant gathering in the park to celebrate his birthday. “If they bring it back, I’m not going to be super angry, if they bring it back for the right reasons. I’d rather have a curfew and have our numbers be low than be — ‘Everything is open’ — and having another crazy spike. But I don’t think it’s too early, as long as people understand they can’t get together inside and only do outdoor gatherings. Obviously, I’m happier without a curfew than with a curfew, but I think the knee-jerk reaction that the curfew is bad is a knee-jerk reaction, it’s not a rational reaction. Look, what did we do differently than Ontario? We had a curfew and they didn’t.”

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But Kayla De Leon, who was at the same party as Heistermann, is less convinced the curfew worked.

“I don’t think it was really making a difference,” De Leon said. “I think people have just been doing their own thing regardless.”

De Leon said she heard about a lot of underground parties going on in spite of the curfew and that people would go to friends’ places and simply stay overnight in order to avoid problems with the curfew.

Justin Lalancette was preparing to do some outdoor training with a couple of friends and he said training after work has been problematic under the curfew restrictions.

“It feels great that it’s being lifted,” Lalancette said. “We can take back the normal rhythm of our life. It had an impact on our training. You’d get back home at around 6 p.m. after work and then you’d have to make supper for the kids. So you don’t have much room to manoeuvre if you want to go for a run or do a bit of training. So we’re happy.”

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Added Louis Fréchette, who was set to train with Lalancette: “You finish work late and when the curfew was 8 p.m., you have to rush to buy your groceries. And in fact the result was there were way more people in the grocery store because everyone had to go at the same time. So I thought it was a bit extreme. Also I felt like I was losing my freedom and that had a negative impact on my morale. You’re not allowed to do what you want. Maybe it was necessary for a certain amount of time, but in the long-term, I think it wasn’t very good for our mental health.”

bkelly@postmedia.com

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