Premier advising British Columbians stay home for holidays

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — With Hanukkah and Christmas just around the corner, B.C.’s premier says people need to be focused on staying home.

As COVID-19 cases continue to increase in every part of B.C., John Horgan is bluntly telling people there is no place in the province that is safe from the virus.

“This is a critical, dangerous time for B.C. with respect to COVID-19. It’s absolutely essential that we reduce our interactions with people who are not in our bubble or our cohort, or in our family, or in our household unit. And I don’t know how we can be more clear on that,” he says.

REALATED: 12 COVID-19 deaths, 834 new cases as B.C.’s top doctor to add measures to indoor sports

He adds it’s time to break the chains of transmission and that means staying away from planes, trains, ferries or road trips unless it’s absolutely essential.

“If you don’t need to travel you shouldn’t be travelling. Stay in tight, confined bubbles until we can break this circuit of transmission in the community and get back to a place where we can start celebrating the arrival of vaccines as early as the first part of January 2021.”

Horgan says while these unprecedented times are challenging for people and crushing for tourism operators, it’s necessary.

“I think most tourism operators understand that we have had restrictions on travel internationally. Of course we’ve had orders were encouraging people to stay in their own communities. This is not good news for tourism,” he says.

“We tried our level best during the summer to make sure people stayed in British Columbia, they took their discretionary dollars and spent them at locations around B.C. But as we come into the winter in the depths of the second wave of COVID-19 — this is a very difficult time for the tourism sector. Ski hill operators have been in discussions with the minister. We’ll keep those discussions going.”

Horgan says a report and recommendations from the tourism task force will be coming over the next couple of weeks in time to make legislative changes if necessary.

“We’ll take steps, whatever steps we can to keep the industry going.”

The Premier is also taking his concerns over a Transport Canada order making people leave their vehicles on enclosed decks on BC Ferries, to the Prime Minister.

“I also was talking to him about a national or a pan-Canadian message about staying in your own province — staying in your own community — so that we can curb or break the circuit of community transmission and he agreed with me. We both felt that perhaps by saying don’t get on the ferry is the best course of action until we get this latest wave under control.”