BUSINESS LOBBYISTS GET IN GARDNER’S FACE ON VACCINES, RESTRICTIONS
Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com
MUSKOKA — Call it a health and safety meeting.
Business advocates — “under strain and risk” — confronted the personal and professional challenges of COVID head-on in a virtual face-off with the region’s medical officer of health.
Four Muskoka chamber of commerce executive directors met with Dr. Charles Gardner to “share member concerns, provide feedback, offer support for a speedy vaccine rollout and highlight the importance of front-line workers regarding COVID-19 vaccinations.”
The video meeting Friday let Norah Fountain of Muskoka Lakes, Brenda Rhodes of Bracebridge, Sandy Lockhart of Gravenhurst and Kelly Haywood of Huntsville/Lake of Bays vent and present recommendations that would keep residents and workers safe.
They were joined by David Kitchen, owner of Field of Greens in Port Carling.
The meeting — facilitated by MPP Norman Miller — was not new.
It was more of a re-iteration. A rehash. A chance to be heard and reheard.
An opportunity to re-enforce existing positions.
A diplomatic dialogue on main stream, main street issues.
They’ve done this delicate dance in the past and it seems to have worked with the recent rollback from grey to red after just a week.
So, did it work again. Well, let’s see ….
A release from the chambers today said they “brought forward recommendations and offered support for a faster vaccine rollout, requested consistent messaging for businesses and assurances that a business voice will be included in vaccination plans.”
They said their concerns were for front-line workers who come face-to-face with customers and clients with or without masks or Plexiglas shields.
Business wants to be right up there in line close to front-line health-care workers — and respectfully not stuck back on a waiting list.
As well as concerns about staff shortages “being exacerbated by people afraid to work when the seasonal population swells in late spring and summer.”
They stressed upon Gardner the need for “more targeted regional restrictions.”
To the chambers that’s a subtle way of saying they want to bridge the Muskoka-Simcoe divide with different laws north and south.
Fountain said she assured Gardner that the chambers “will always take their guidance from the health unit, but with a caveat: “We need assurances that the concerns of our businesses are also being heard.”
She said: “With the April spring break soon upon us we are expecting an early swell of population.
“And while business owners are working hard to keep staff safe, some are experiencing increased staff shortages, an already exasperated issue. Getting our frontline workers of all ages vaccinated sooner would be a great help.”
Kitchen re-enforced that with his advocacy for front-line workers.
To him the importance for local and small businesses is “to have a voice at the table to help collaborate regarding how vaccines are administered.”
“There needs to be a more considered and measured approach toward the effects of COVID on small, seasonal northern businesses.”
“As a northern small business — under strain and risk — recruiting and hiring and transporting staff is very challenging at the best of times. We need to define where essential front-line workers fit in terms of an expedited accelerated vaccination process.”
Sandy Lockhart supported the vaccine rollout, adding local chambers have support from the Ontario Chamber of Commerce (OCC).
“If holes exist, that if filled could accelerate rollout as supplies arrive, then the OCC will find organizations to help.
“Vaccination is the biggest priority for our membership,” she told Gardner and Miller.
“On a more local level, we want to help. I would even do a midnight shift assessment, and I know that I can gather community volunteers and support.”
Gardner, who said he has listened and learned from previous conversations with the chambers, he offered his usual calm and sympathetic ear and noting the unarguable health discrepancies within Simcoe-Muskoka.
That said, he replied “provision of vaccination is my top priority right now,” saying “it’s the great opportunity we have to bring this under control to come out of the pandemic and get back to much more normal living and open up the economy.”
And though he didn’t agree outright to the immediate demands of the lobbyists, he countered with the vaccines.
“We’re on the cusp of getting more; the week of March 22 we expect almost a tripling of the volume of Pfizer vaccine.”
He said “right now we’re giving in the range of 7,000 doses a week and when we get to the height of it, we anticipate it will be something like 7,000 doses a day.”
When asked by a director “what would he suggest we say to people who are actually afraid to work,” Gardner seemingly blithely responded this way:
“The control measures that we promote and require are very effective and helpful, and people have it within their ability to abide by them. The use of distancing and masking, hand hygiene is critical, the monitoring that people need to do before they go to work and self exclusion. All of that is important and helpful.”
Gardner acknowledged that “this is a tense time, and that workplace immunization will be considered for the future.”
The four chambers of commerce say they meet weekly to collaborate on best practices and advocacy for their business communities, send daily announcements to their memberships and will continue to correspond with Gardner and the health.
Email news@muskokatoday.com
Celebrating 27 YEARS of ‘Local Online Journalism’
Follow us on at Twitter @muskokatoday & on Facebook at mclairmont1
Leave your comments at end of story.
Send Letters to the Editor at news@muskokatoday.com
SUBSCRIBE for $25 by e-transferring to news@muskokatoday.com
Or go online to https://muskokatoday.com/subscriptions
