Unfortunately strict measures became necessary because of a lack of personal responsibility. That percentage of the population that does not adhere to guidance (masks/ physical distancing/ handwashing) whether it be in private or in public (ie 'freedom' mob), pretty much caused this to happen. Government and the medical community just did not trust citizens at large enough to get us through this second wave. What lessons we learned from the first wave, were forgotten by many.
Absolutely, a complete lack of personal responsibility led to this crisis, and this set of restrictions*. But enough about Jason Kenney.
Obviously not everybody followed all of the rules. Look at a road for two minutes, and tell me again how it's reasonable to expect every single person to strictly follow all the rules in a serious life-or-death situation. (And everybody on that road has learned all the rules, and passed a test.) It's completely obvious that some people will bend the rules, and the rules have been complicated and confusing and ever-changing.
Also, even if everybody followed the rules, the rules have been obviously too lax. Want to sweat and breathe heavily in a spin class -- something that has been linked to multiple outbreaks in both Calgary and Edmonton? Completely within the rules until November 13, when cases had quadrupled from September levels. Still completely within the rules today if you drive 15 minutes to Cochrane. Want a 50 person wedding? Or a 15 person keg party in your studio apartment? 100% within the rules until November 24, when the province had gone from 1 death a day in October to 10 a day, and after Jason Kenney had spent more than a month saying people shouldn't, even though he was the only person in the province in the power to actually make that happen. Want to get hammered at a bar, with no mask (since you're drinking)? Still allowed until 10 PM this Saturday night.
Government trusted the public entirely too much; if they had trusted us a little less, we probably could have had a less stringent and/or shorter lockdown in November, rather than over the important social/retail season of Christmas, and with hundreds of fewer deaths, and thousands of fewer cases. You can look back at old posts and see people saying this in real time, without the benefit of hindsight.
One thing that hasn't been mentioned much is that the higher the cases go up, the longer it takes for them to go down under the same circumstances. Say we can half the number of new cases every X days. We'll be over 2000 new cases a day by the time there's any effect from the new rules. If we want to get back down to 125 or so a day - the September number - then that's 4 halvings needed. If we'd done an equally effective restriction on November 1, when we had 500 cases a day and the exponential growth was clear, then we'd only need two halvings. If we can halve the number of cases every 10 days, that's the difference between 20 and 40 days. (I did a quick calculation, which may not be right, but I think we were closer to halving the number of cases every 20 days back in April.)
* Which is not a lockdown, it's less (but not by much) than the "lockdown" in effect in Toronto, which is less than we had in March and April, which was less than, for example, France, Italy, Spain or Australia had at their strictest. The malls are still open for leisure shopping; maybe this is acceptable exposure, maybe it's a reasonable economic tradeoff, whether it's good or bad, it's not a lockdown.