Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown says that the city will work to offer residents more ways to stay active outdoors while indoor gyms and other recreational facilities are shuttered to limit the spread of the Omicron variant.

As of Wednesday morning a number of facilities, including gyms and recreation centres, are prohibited from operating as a result of a swatch of new public health measures which will be in effect for a minimum of 21 days.

Speaking with reporters during a briefing at Brampton City Hall, Brown called the closures “a tough pill to swallow” given how widely used the city’s recreation centres are.

But he said that the city plans to do its part to help residents stay active during the lockdown by seeking to create additional opportunities for outdoor recreation.

He said that Brampton will extend the hours of operation at many city-run rinks over the coming weeks and will also offer “fun, family friendly outdoor programming,” such as instructor-led outdoor hikes.

Brown also said that the city will be doing additional maintenance on some of its outdoor trails and clearing the snow from its 100 outdoor sports fields, which remain open.

Meanwhile, plans are underway to launch a backyard rink competition for residents. The idea, Brown said, follows upon the success of a backyard gardening competition the city held earlier in the pandemic.

“If we're getting to the point where we're not allowing outdoor amenities or functions, you know, that would be going down a different path than the science and the data and the science the data is very clear that outdoor is low risk and if you start to say you can't have outdoor functions what's next are we going to be canceling skiing and skating next? For me it doesn't make sense,” he said. “We've learned about this virus, we've learned that the residents can enjoy the outdoors and I for one will continue to advocate for the ability to have outdoor amenities and functions for our residents.”

Public health officials have said that residents need to significantly reduce their contacts in order to blunt the impact of Omicron and give the healthcare system a better chance at handling the increased patient volumes.

Brown, however, said that he “struggles” with the closure of recreational facilities given the link between poor health and severe outcomes from COVID-19.

“'There's many tools in the toolkit but one way to support health and wellness in the community is to encourage active lifestyles and I have to say one of my worries when we close recreation is there's an equity issue as well,” he said. “You know very few people have the luxury of having recreational amenities in their own home. Many residents don't even have a backyard.”

The Ford government has previously closed some outdoor recreational amenities during previous waves of the pandemic, including last spring when they temporarily announced the closure of playgrounds only to reverse the decision one day later.

Under the new provincial regulations outdoor recreation facilities can continue to operate but the number of spectators is not supposed to exceed 50 per cent of a venue’s capacity.