Watching the hordes of people wandering the Village Stroll over the last couple of weeks (many with no masks) I suppose none of us should be surprised at the order coming down from the province to shut down Whistler Blackcomb until April 19.
But I find it absolutely infuriating that we are in this position when the government had every opportunity before we headed into the spring break period for everyone else but the Sea to Sky corridor to put the brakes on.
It had already witnessed what happened after Christmas, then New Year’s, then the Superbowl with rising numbers. Then WorkSafeBC came in under B.C.’s top doctor Bonnie Henry’s direction and next up was a pretty big push to get hundreds of frontline workers across many sectors vaccinated in the resort.
But you only had to look at local social media in the last several days to know our numbers were skyrocketing again, likely from all the visitors here from Quebec, Ontario and the rest of B.C.—all ignoring our toothless and useless “travel advisory.”
(After days of requesting the information, Pique was finally told March 30 that we had 218 new cases in the last week with 83.2 per cent of them between the ages of 20 and 39. However, no numbers were given for what percentage of these cases were the Brazil variant of concern Henry talked about when she handed down the new health orders that shut down Whistler Blackcomb and indoor dining.)
And people here in Whistler were doing the same thing—nipping off to Tofino and Vancouver and elsewhere to enjoy a break. I mean, why should we follow the advisory when no one else was—or at least it felt like that.
And let’s not even talk about the numerous house gatherings happening and young spring breakers—many of whom have already had the coronavirus and recovered—deciding to just let loose for a few hours. Sigh. I mean, who doesn’t want to let loose!
But for the province to give just hours of notice regarding the new public health orders to Whistler, Whistler Blackcomb, our Chamber and local businesses was unacceptable. Government and health officials should have been meeting with them on the weekend to find a way forward that did not mean putting hundreds out of work overnight, not to mention risking the future viability of some businesses that are already just barely hanging on. It did, after all, result in Whistler Blackcomb making the decision late Tuesday to shut down for the rest of the ski-and-ride snow season.
It is unconscionable that the Chief Operating Officer of Whistler Blackcomb Geoff Buchheister described being “surprised” upon hearing of the order to close the mountains. WB is the centrepiece of a tourist mecca that in normal times provides $1.37 million dollars a day to all levels of government in taxes. Is this how you treat one of your biggest economic partners?
And don’t lose sight of the fact that Whistler Blackcomb is not being shut down because it did something wrong and became a superspreader business. It was ordered closed because the province has spent months waffling on the messaging around whether Whistler Blackcomb was a local mountain for the Lower Mainland and the rest of the province and country.
There is no doubt, however, that we all share a portion of the blame. As a resort we wanted to have our cake—keep the restaurants and other resort businesses open—and eat it too—gratefully accept the revenue visitors brought in.
But to clamp down on the resort in such a heavy-handed way with no forward planning was unnecessarily harsh for everyone. And to do it when everyone here, who has been busy serving holidayers for weeks, was about to get some spring break days off themselves is a very bitter pill to swallow indeed.
Was there not a way to restrict skiers and riders to those with Whistler addresses only? Big White managed to do this months ago. Let’s keep in mind that no other ski resort has been targeted in this way with these latest health orders.
Does Dr. Henry honestly think that people won’t come to the resort for the long weekend or the next few weeks just because the mountain is closed? People will still ignore the “travel advisory” and come here to get outside in the fresh air and hike, bike in the corridor, maybe head out into the backcountry or just to get away to some of our gorgeous hotels. And they will come all spring and into the summer as well, and probably in crazy numbers once we are all vaccinated.
