MONTREAL -- Five weeks after Quebec's curfew came into effect, there are just as many Quebecers getting ticketed for violating it as there were when it began.
More than 1,000 people were issued a ticket last week, the province's public security department reported on Monday. In fact, whether the authorities like it or not, this number has stayed stable.
The curfew is in effect from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. in red zones, and from 9:30 p.m. to 5 a.m. in orange zones. Quebec is the only province in Canada that has imposed a COVID-19 curfew on its population.
The province's police forces distributed 1,034 tickets between February 8 and 14, a little more than the previous week.
During the second week of February, the Sûreté du Québec provincial police issued 307 tickets for non-compliance with the curfew, including 11 on the greater Montreal highway network.
In the same period, Montreal police reported having issued 280 statements of offence, an increase from the previous week.
The Quebec City Police Service issued 19 tickets, which was a decrease.
By comparison, between February 1 and 7, police issued a total of 984 tickets to those who violated the curfew.
Every week has brought roughly the same number, except for a higher one in the very first week. Police gave out 1,084 tickets between January 25 and 31, 1,090 between January 18 and 24, and 1,429 between January 11 and 17.
That was in addition to the 740 statements of offence issued on January 9 and 10, when the health measure came into force.
In total, since January 9, 6,361 statements of offense -- which lead to fines ranging from $1,000 to $6,000 -- have been issued by the police in connection with the curfew.
The number of new cases of COVID-19 was under the 1,000 mark in Quebec on Monday, with 728 new cases and 15 deaths reported. Quebec has recorded 10,229 deaths since the start of the pandemic.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 15, 2021.
