FUREY: CFIB slams Doug Ford calling lockdown extension 'downright insulting'
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The Canadian Federation of Independent Business is slamming Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s Friday decision to keep Toronto and Peel Region in lockdown for at least two more weeks as “downright insulting.”
“Ontario’s small businesses deserve better,” a release from the group reads. “We call on the Ontario government to reverse course and keep its commitment to reopen small retailers immediately in Toronto, Peel and North Bay, and to provide a clear plan to reopen all remaining sectors in these areas in the coming weeks.”
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The Ontario government was originally planning to permit businesses to reopen Feb. 22, but Ford chickened out after Dr. Eileen DeVilla, from Toronto, and Dr. Lawrence Loh, from Peel Region, objected due to fears about new variants potentially causing increases in COVID-19 cases.
You’ve got to wonder what Ford’s been thinking this past week. It’s become increasingly clear to Ontarians they are living in one of the most regressive jurisdictions in North America.
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That the CFIB would issue such a strongly worded letter is a clear sign people are not happy and are making their voices heard.
All key indicators have greatly improved — new cases, testing positivity rates, deaths and hospitalizations are all going down. Meanwhile, many American cities have already been reopen for weeks and their cases continue to go down.
The CFIB denounced the Ford government as “the least small business-friendly government in the country during the pandemic.”
They continued: “It is unconscionable that this government has not come up with an alternative to lockdowns, while dismissing even the most modest proposals to allow for a limited head count or by-appointment in-store service.”
Before the Christmas shopping season, the CFIB requested businesses be allowed to reopen to a maximum of three customers at a time. This was around the same time a Sun report revealed only 0.1% of all COVID-19 cases in the province could be traced to retail.
But this evidence apparently wasn’t enough and Ford didn’t budge.
It looks like he is still under the influence of pro-lockdown advisors. Last week, a new Ontario Science Table report attempted to claim lockdowns were almost exclusively what’s driving cases down, even though international evidence increasingly puts such claims into dispute.
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Jurisdictions south of the border that have not been in lockdown have seen a decline in cases that almost exactly mirrors that of Ontario’s in both scale and timing.
The CFIB release concludes with a sombre wake-up call: “Ontario businesses — particularly those in the GTA — have been locked down longer than the vast majority of jurisdictions around the world.”
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