Sutton and Brome Lake divided

an email.

Expanding on that idea in conversation on Monday afternoon, the mayor said that he has heard several accounts of local residents being “not very tolerant of outsiders,” based on the idea that they are coming to the area from Montreal, which currently has the highest recorded concentration of infections in the country.

“This may not be the case,” he said. “Lots of people are speculating.”

While the Sutton mayor said that it is clear there are more people coming into the town on days of warmer weather, he stressed the fact that the municipality is taking the pandemic seriously, and expressed appreciation for the ongoing presence and engagement of the Surete du Quebec and first responder teams. He also argued that now is not the time to start a “witch hunt” between townies and those coming from elsewhere.

“We have to relaunch our economy,” Lafrance said, adding that the municipality is doing everything it can to ensure that this is being done in a safe way.

Asked for his position on the matter, Town of Brome Lake Mayor

Richard Burcombe took a different approach than his neighbour, arguing that although tourism is certainly important for the region, now is not the prime time to be encouraging such visits.

“I am not against tourism, but when you travel back and forth, what do you bring back and forth with you?” he said. “Tourism is very important, but not at the expense of people dying.”

Burcombe said that the government guidelines on travel between regions were left open enough that there is room for people to have different interpretations of what is and is not permitted, which makes things challenging when it comes to keeping the spread of infection contained.

“We have to be very careful,” he said, stressing the fact that now is a time when everyone needs to be on the same page as far as pandemic response goes. Much as they may not like the added risk of visitors, however, the mayor pointed out that municipalities simply don’t have the authority to stop people from coming

“We can’t stop them from going back and forth, but it is worrisome to the people who respect the government recommendations,” Burcombe said. “We have some people who won’t even drive to Cowansville.”

In light of the fact that it is unlikely that Montreal is going to be locked down any time soon, the mayor said the municipality is looking at the best ways to protect its residents without penalizing them by taking actions like shutting down walking trails. While he speculated that the lack of events over the summer season will cut back on the number of visitors to the region, Burcombe pointed out that the Eastern Townships are widely seen as a safe place and one rich in natural beauty that no one can just declare “cancelled” for the coming year.

That in mind, the mayor explained that TBL will be doing what it can to limit access to what local attractions remain to residents. He said that the conversation is already underway about how Douglas Beach will be operated this year, given the fact that as much as 80 per cent of its usual users come from outside of the community.

“We have to have the ways and means to control (the virus),” he said, explaining that although no decision has been made yet, there is a good chance that the beach will be limited to residents only for the summer of 2020. “We love to have the tourist here when the times are good, but COVID is not going to go away in the next month.”

While critical of come-and-go visitors, there was one group of out-of-towners that Burcombe spoke highly of in the current situation. He acknowledged that the decision was counter to what was being recommended at the time, but suggested that the many people with secondary homes in the town who made the decision early on to come out and stay at a time when the community would usually be at its lowest point of the year has gone a long way to supporting local businesses like the grocery store and bakery.

The viral case load in the municipality, meanwhile, has been very stable since March 12 according to the Mayor, who shared that at this point there are 11 confirmed cases in the Town of Brome Lake, most of which date back to the early days of the isolation period.