Manitoba gym owner, sport associations thrilled with changes to public health orders

A Winnipeg gym owner and provincial sport associations are relieved a few public health orders are now lifted.

Across Manitoba, capacity limits have been dropped for most businesses and gatherings, including gyms and fitness studios like Justin Liwanag's NXT LVL Performance in Winnipeg's Inkster Industrial area.

"It definitely gives us more freedom in terms of getting more people within the gym, probably doing more personal training sessions while class stuff is going on. So yeah, it's definitely a good thing," he said.

"But for us, we still have to make sure in terms of like, a community member safety, to make sure that they feel comfortable with it."

He believes the changes will help small businesses like his survive.

Meanwhile, Johnny Fukumoto of Fukumoto Fitness in East Kildonan says his gym won't make any sudden changes just because there are no longer capacity limits.

"It'll just take us a lot longer to be willing to change everything overnight because we want to see how it how it unfolds and not have to just change everything back if something else unpredictable happens," he said.

There are also big changes for youth take part in indoor sports and recreation.

Anyone age 12 to 17 in these activities will no longer be required to provide proof of vaccination or recent testing.

That news is a relief for a lot of people who want to participate in or watch sports, said Janet McMahon, the president and CEO of Sport Manitoba.

"A lot of facilities were only allowing one parent, or grandparents couldn't go watch. So I think [going] back to full capacity just takes a lot of stress and a lot of extra effort on facility owners, and I think a lot of people would be happy to be able to go watch their kids participate," she said.

Some youth dropped out of sports or their parents pulled them out because of vaccination requirements, and the testing requirement was cost-prohibitive, but changes to the public health orders could bring them back, McMahon said.

"We could see, I think, a boost in participation rates just because I think that was, for some families, a barrier," she said.

Meanwhile, Hockey Manitoba Provincials were rescheduled and are taking place over the next few weeks after a two-year hiatus because public health orders prohibiting tournaments have been lifted.