The economic life-blood of our municipality is bound by tourism and the need visitors from the Greater Vancouver Regional District, from other provinces and from abroad to thrive. And to survive. The decision by the B.C. NDP government to close our hill after the spring break is absolutely political. God forbid for their Lower Mainland constituents would have been silent if we had illegally shut us down before-hand. Had they done it before the break, voters would have been up in arms.
I also doubt anyone in government understands supply chain management. In case anyone didn’t know, restaurants buy food and set out staff schedules in advance. It’s called planning. Something [B.C. Premier] John Horgan doesn’t seem to understand after a career of being paid no matter what by taxpayer dollars. Did they consult the food-services industry and its hundreds of thousands of workers? What happens to all that fresh food? What happens to all my friends who are now unemployed while shopping malls, Cypress Mountain and the legislature remain open?
But let’s get down to the root of the issue here on why we are seeing a cluster of COVID-19 cases. On multiple occasions over spring break I saw visitors who were sharing dining experiences with people outside of their household. I can testify that to that. Multiple times. I could even name names and places. The issue is not Whistler workers. It’s the people who came here and broke the rules because they could. Blame goes to the government for non-enforcement of the bubble rule. They could have easily had people up here doing checks instead of lollygagging in Victoria.
Don’t blame Whistler residents and workers.
Lastly, to my fellow residents, John Horgan owns this and yet he made our chief Public Health Officer [Dr. Bonnie Henry] the one to announce these restrictions, thereby [making her] the target of attack on social media. Please don’t blame DBH. She is doing her best.
Patrick Smyth // Whistler
