ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic implications for governments have been widely documented. This chapter focuses on government actions and policies developed in response to the virus outbreak in British Columbia (BC) (Canada). Drawing on the COVID-19 Canadian timeline, this chapter is a review of COVID-related federal and provincial actions and most of BC’s own responses. We review and analyse how people adapted to COVID-19 and review, in particular, how people reacted to the mask-wearing recommendations and also discuss issues of discrimination and xenophobia that arose in BC (and across Canada) to unprecedented levels in recent history. We discuss the development of public policy, programs and tools, introduced by local, provincial and federal authorities in BC from the beginning of the COVID pandemic. Our chapter documents how authorities formulate and develop public policy tools, including mask-wearing, in response to the health crisis; also, it reviews trust-related challenges to Canadian governments.
