Industry News
This morning, Monday, February 8th, Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced that due to Covid-19 cases significantly decreasing in the province, the state of emergency the province has been in since December 26th will end, allowing ski resorts to reopen. This news comes after Premier Doug Ford announced on December 21st, that ski resorts would have to close due to rising case levels, followed by him saying later in the new year that ski hills were the “last thing on my mind.”
This news was further complicated after Doug Ford’s announcement today when a government spokesperson stated that ski hills were actually not allowed to open and there was a mistake. Later Monday, the provincial government recorrected themselves, saying that the initial message that ski hills are allowed to open was correct.
What Will Skiing Look Like in Ontario?
In the most recent government communication, they stated that ski hills are allowed to operate under “certain conditions,” although those conditions have not yet been outlined.
This statement has caused more confusion as although Ontario has come out of a state of emergency, Toronto, Peel, and York regions are to remain in lockdown. Since the majority of Ontario’s population live in these regions, people are not sure if they will be allowed to travel outside of their region to ski.
On Blue Mountain’s website, their update says that they…
“…look forward to welcoming skiers and riders back to the slopes” and that they are “diligently working to review the announcement details and share updates with[us].”
As of now, skiing is back in Ontario, and that is something to be excited about, but we will have to wait patiently in the coming week to find out more details on what exactly it will look like.
Does anyone really think that preventing people from skiing slowed the spread of Covid. Why not restrict the apres-ski socializing instead?