Hard-hit Canada is springing back to life – or to the already cliched 'new normal'

The return to normality is startling because Quebec was the scene of Canada’s worst coronavirus outbreak

The Snowbirds, the Royal Canadian Air Force air acrobatics team, fly over Montreal in a morale-building tour of Canada called "Operation Inspiration" as Canadians entered their third month of social distancing, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, May 7. Sebastien St-Jean / AFP

Manager Rob Lambert cuts Justin Ludwig's hair at Crows Nest Barbershop, Vancouver, May 19. British Columbia began phase two of the reopening of its economy on Tuesday, allowing certain businesses to open their doors to customers if new health and safety regulations were followed. Darryl Dyck / AP

Nicole Greer grooms Oogi, a Coton De Tulear dog (left), and Deidre Howard grooms Oliver, a Bichon Frise, at Tail Spin Dog Spa as Toronto begins to re-open, Ontario, Canada, May 19. Carlos Osorio / Reuters

Earls restaurant, Vancouver, May 19. Darryl Dyck / AP

An employee at Zara puts up a sign during a phased reopening in Toronto, Ontario, Canada May 19. Carlos Osorio / Reuters

Nick Abrantes after buying three pairs of shoes once the restrictions were eased in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, May 19. Carlos Osorio / Reuters

Canadian Armed Forces medical personnel arrive at Villa Val des Arbres, a seniors' long-term care centre to help amid the outbreak of the coronavirus, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, April 20. Christinne Muschi / Reuters

Outside the Camilla Care Community in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, May 19, 2020. Carlos Osorio / Reuters

A Canadian soldier aids a senior citizen at the Vigi Queen Elizabeth Residential and Long-Term Care Centre in Montreal, Quebec, May 10. AFP

A city park in Montreal, Canada, May 18. Graham Hughes / AP

A pupil escorted into the schoolyard by a teacher as schools outside the greater Montreal region begin to reopen, Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, Canada, May 11. Christinne Muschi / Reuters

A pupil has her hands sanitised in the schoolyard, as schools outside the greater Montreal region begin to reopen their doors, Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, Canada, May 11. Christinne Muschi / Reuters

Andre Laliberte with a jar of fruit preserves next to his banner, a play on words in French reading 'let's preserve life', by artist Patsy Van Roos on May 6, Montreal. Artist Patsy Van Roost was brightening up Montreal balconies and putting smiles on pandemic-weary passers-by with a litany of personalised messages on multicoloured banners hung across the city. "The idea is to spread a little love for people during their solo walks," she told AFP. Sebastien St-Jean / AFP

Artist Patsy Van Roost on her balcony with a banner she created during the pandemic on May 6, Montreal. Sebastien St-Jean / AFP

A temporary foreign worker from Mexico plants strawberries on a farm in Mirabel, Quebec, May 6. Graham Hughes / AP

Taking an afternoon stroll in the small park near our house in Montreal, it is tempting to think that normality is within reach. The city has finally shaken off the last vestiges of its long winter. Leaves have sprouted on trees almost overnight.

Grass is filling out patches of brown earth. The warmth of the Sun is invigorating, more so following weeks of confinement and the season’s shift. It feels like the first sip of water after days of fasting and privation.

More restaurant and cafe owners are opening their storefronts for takeout. You can pick up a coffee from Starbucks (at the entrance, after dropping your contactless credit card in a clear box to a masked barista) and sip it on a park bench. Most people walk around in solitude or in pairs, and maybe a third are wearing masks.

There are occasional glimpses of people flouting the rules of gathering too close. Some chat while their children frolic with squirrels nearby.

A young man and a woman sit together on a bench, talking, and then walk off in different directions to their respective homes.
The halting return to normality is startling because the province of Quebec is the scene of Canada's worst coronavirus outbreak.

There are signs that the danger is abating, but until a few days ago, it was one of the hardest hit places in the world, with Montreal at the centre.

There have been over 44,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19, and over 3,600 have died in Quebec. Over half of the cases, around 22,000, are in Montreal, as well as two thirds of the deaths in the province.

The daily death toll has slowed down but Montreal alone, at 2,200 deaths, accounts for over a third of Canada’s coronavirus fatalities.

There appear to be two main reasons for Montreal's predicament. Last month, the Montreal Gazette published an expose that revealed the deadly mismanagement and abandonment of elderly people at a nursing home in the city where the virus had spread.

Subsequent revelations showed similarly dire conditions in other nursing homes in Montreal and other cities in Canada.

Deaths in those homes account for a scandalous 80 per cent of all deaths in the country, and there are 126 retirement homes and long-term care facilities with at least one confirmed case of infection by the coronavirus in Montreal.

The percentage is much higher than in Europe, and those conditions affect the elderly, the most vulnerable among us.

There is also a class component to the crisis. Lower income areas are more deeply affected, which echoes the inequalities that have come to the fore in the West because of the pandemic, such as the disproportionate number of deaths among African Americans in the US.
Despite all this, somehow, the death toll is stabilising. Quebec as a province has reopened businesses and daycares, and Montreal is supposed to follow suit next week with the reopening of retail stores, and daycares in the beginning of June.

Social distancing is supposed to be observed in all these situations. Emergency services have not been overwhelmed so far.
Montreal is so eclectic that it is hard to really describe it in a way that broadly captures its essence. But there is an unpretentious joy and embrace of living within it (despite the winter months) that is difficult to capture unless you have experienced it.

The hum of conversation and the giggles of children in the park in the late afternoon in summer, the buzz of the Old Town, an espresso with cannoli in Little Italy, the light show in the Notre Dame cathedral, and the music all around.
The walks in the park, the gardens flowering again in the front yards, the takeout meal from your favourite date night restaurant, the tentative steps that we associate with normal, are seduction incarnate to souls hungry for the evolutionary imperative of social contact.

Is it the right thing to do? I am not an epidemiologist, though what I am reading tells me that it is too soon, that there will probably be another wave and another lockdown.

There are all these conversations happening about the "new normal," a phrase that's already become cliched, about the future of work, about whether we'll ever have offices again, how classes at McGill University and Concordia will resume in the autumn, about handshakes and masks and whether you should worry about delivery packages, if you should order in, and where you can find Lysol wipes, and on and on.

But it is easy to drown out all that for just a moment when you pick up the scent of grass through the haze of hand sanitiser. Because that whiff is a fitful glimpse at the light at the far, far end of the tunnel, and it is a little easier for a moment to have to be so far away from loved ones.
I just hope we take it slow, so we do not have to mourn so many between now and when we get there.

Kareem Shaheen is a former Middle East correspondent based in Canada