(Bloomberg) -- Canada's largest province is moving to the next phase of reopening its economy after months of Covid-19 restrictions, but its financial capital is being excluded.
Ontario businesses ranging from hair salons, shopping malls, swimming pools, beaches and campgrounds can open again as of Friday, Premier Doug Ford said Monday. Restaurants and bars will be allowed to open their outdoor dining areas and patios for the first time since the pandemic began.
Toronto and its suburbs are not part of second phase in the province's three-stage restart. The city of Windsor, Ontario, just across the border from Detroit, is also excluded.
“When we have a province larger than Texas and California, we have to differentiate between large urban centers and rural areas,” Ford said. “We realized this isn't fair to punish people in rural areas because of big urban centers.”
Ontario is also boosting the number of people allowed to congregate in one place to 10 from five.
Before today, Ford had spoken publicly against a regionalized approach to lifting restrictions in the province, despite evidence that the virus situation was worse in Toronto than in most other places. The city has had more than 12,700 cases of Covid-19 and 944 deaths.
In Quebec, the government has reopened the economy in a patchwork system that allowed areas outside of Montreal to ease lockdowns first. Quebec is set to announce its plan to reopen restaurants later Monday.
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