April 18, 2020

TWO SIDES OF COVID-19 COTTAGE CONTROVERSY

MUSKOKA — Concerns about cottagers coming north and eating towns out of their house and home — and crowding hospitals with COVID-19 cases — are being expressed locally on national TV and in letters to the editor.

Should “seasonal residents” stay home and stay safe in the south?

Yes say many — including politicians, pundits, some public and local cognoscenti.

No ifs ands or buts says John Ibbitson, a Globe and Mail columnist and Sunday morning panellist on CBC.

He said so — again — last week when he cited his sister, Nola Ibbitson, who works the checkout at YIG in Gravenhurst, where presumably she has witnessed cottager carts brimming with groceries.

It’s a divisive issue, one being played out in local homes and discussed around the dinner table daily — if so quietly behind closed doors.

Don’t want to bite hands that feed so many.

But as we tell you every day in MuskokaTODAY.com there are two sides to every story.

Like a cottager donation today of $1 million to the Huntsville Hospital Foundation by Dani Reiss, president and CEO of Canada Goose and a seasonal resident in Huntsville/Lake of Bays.

A successful business person who is proud of his adopted community where he spends more time.

But writes Cindy Roberts, of Bowmanville, in a letter war recently waged on the pages of Canada’s largest city-circulation newspaper, The Toronto Star: “If you leave your Toronto home you are putting your rural community at risk”

She adds: “If you shop in that area you are taking away resources that are for the people who live there permanently.”

Au contraire mon ami, argues Brigette Nowak, of Toronto.

She says cottagers foot the local bills by paying more than half the taxes — so townies can have municipal staffs, recreational facilities and snowplowing.

“If cottage country wants our property taxes, they get the taxpayer, too.”

To be continued — this summer.