Canadian Parliament was suspended on Friday; one of a host of preventative measures put in place as the COVID-19 virus makes its way further into Canada.

The House of Commons will remain adjourned until April 20, 2020. While the Senate will be adjourned until April 21, 2020.

The federal budget, which had originally been scheduled to be handed down on March 30, has been postponed as well.

Jeremy Patzer, the member of parliament for Cypress Hills-Grassland, is back in Swift Current. He explained that the work continues, even if members might be spread across the country for a little while.

"It's still functioning.  Every member is working as hard as they possibly can.  There will be some members still in Ottawa.  There will be a lot working from home or from their constituency office.  So the day to day functions that MPs do are still happening.  It's just (that) not everybody comes together."

The most important thing, he said, is that the physical building itself be shut down. Staffers have been advised to work from home. It's up to each individual office, but most will continue having their staff work remotely to ensure that day to day operations of the government still function as normally as possible in this rapidly changing time.

To support those efforts to maintain a functioning government operating from locations, Some financial measures have been put in place for when Parliament resumes in April. And Patzer assures that all of it will be accounted for and will be able to be scrutinized as need be.

Now back in the southwest, he spoke about the efforts that are being taken here to delay the virus's entry.

There are 13 cases in Ottawa as of the last report.

"Ultimately at the end of the day, we still have a chance to really kind of flatten the curve here really.  Just to make sure that we stay ahead of this virus.  So by taking the measures that we are, the measures that we can.  Just by using common sense practices I think we can really prevent the virus from spreading."

He added that the biggest thing is that people simply not panic and instead work together to ensure we stay in front of the virus.

"We're fortunate that we don't have any cases here right now. So let's do what we can to keep it that way."