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The Manitoulin Letter
I was given a copy of an open letter the other day that was issued by the “physicians, nurse practitioners, traditional healers, midwives and physician-assistants” of Manitoulin Island. The bottom line: they want cottage owners to stay at home this summer.
The rationale: a small, rural, elderly population more vulnerable to illness than the average, together with high numbers of seasonal residents and a pandemic, make for a “perfect storm to overwhelm our rural resources.” You shouldn’t burden the Manitoulin health system when you have access to services at your year-round place of residence. The coronavirus disables so quickly that you may not have the time to beetle back to your home base hospital. Come back next year, when you will be welcomed.
One Manitoulin local township mayor has declared a state of emergency, and made a statement urging cottage owners to stay home, noting that ‘your healthcare tax dollars are allocated based on your full-time residence,” One First Nation community on the Island has been operating a checkpoint, taking note of how many and which travellers are engaged in non-essential travel, including travel to cottages. It has stated that it will be “moving into” a non-essential travel ban. There is only one bridge to Manitoulin Island, and the road into the Island crosses another First Nation community. It doesn’t require much imagination to see how the situation could escalate unpleasantly.
The Letter attempts to foreclose a provincially mandated ‘return to normal’ outcome for Manitoulin until next summer. The provincial emergency is scheduled to expire on May 12, although school closings have already been extended to the end of May. On Monday, the province announced a plan for a staged relaxation of anti-virus prevention measures and for the reopening of businesses that could, if all goes in accordance with the most optimistic epidemiological curve, come into effect by the beginning of July.
The objections to the Letter are straightforward. Second residence owners paid for their properties and should be entitled to enjoy them as they see fit. Over-demand for health services is a potential problem that lurks in a rural community all the time, Part-time residents pay their local taxes and support the local economy. There should not be two classes of people entitled to medical services.
On the other hand, the Letter asks for individual sacrifice in the name of group well-being. These local medical people must know what they are talking about. If Manitoulin is prepared to take the hit to its economy, why shouldn’t a cottage owner make the personal community contribution of one year’s foregone enjoyment? We criticize those American protesters who put a greater value on their freedom of personal movement than their compliance with orders of selfrestraint for the common good. What is different in the case of enjoyment of the ownership of a cottage?
Aside from the fact that we have four bridges into our County, and that the drive to a general hospital is shorter in the County than it is on Manitoulin, the same arguments could be made with respect to health services in the County. As yet, our County medical people have not issued a letter asking visitors to stay away from the County this summer. Our mayor issued a letter early in the pandemic in which he requested twoproperty owners to refrain from isolating themselves in their County properties, so as to avoid the over-taxation of County medical resources. He has also requested accommodation providers to refrain from booking any guests until the May 24 long weekend. But so far he has not emulated his counterpart the Manitoulin township mayor in calling on second residence owners to stay away.
I don’t know what the summer will bring. On the one hand, people may be gun-shy about going anywhere for a holiday, in which case business will be quiet. On the other hand, people may be looking for a nearby getaway as the perfect antidote to weeks of captivity, in which case business will boom.
Let’s hope that the second option at least has a fighting chance. Let’s not issue a Manitoulin Letter until our County medical practitioners consider they have no alternative but to do so.
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