While Canada has officially recommended the use of masks in public spaces to help curb the spread of COVID-19, cities across the country have yet to make mask usage mandatory — until now. 

One municipality in Montreal is now requiring all residents to wear a mask when entering a business or a city-owned building, and the mayor says they're the first in the country to do so. 

Cote-St-Luc is a suburb on the island of Montreal and was one of the hardest-hit places in the country when the virus first arrived in Canada. 

Now, Mayor Mitchell Brownstein says his council has passed a bylaw requiring all residents and businesses to comply with mandatory mask usage. 

Brownstein said businesses have two weeks to comply with the new bylaw and anyone (business or individual) caught violating it may be fined between $100 and $500. 

He also said businesses will have to post signage telling customers that masks are required in order to enter, but exceptions will be made for all those who are unable to wear one due to a disability, health condition or other valid reason.

"We want to make Cote St-Luc the safest place for people to shop, and hopefully the provinces in Canada will follow," Brownstein said in an interview with CTV News. 

As of June 2 at 12 p.m., there have been a total of 25,652 confirmed cases of COVID-19 on the island of Montreal, 494 of which were in the small municipality of Cote-St-Luc.