Businesses want border open — when it’s safe
Chamber director says reopening ‘can’t come at expense of health and safety’
Another month, another border closure extension.
Monday’s announcement that land border crossings between Canada and the U.S. will remain largely closed for another month, until at least Nov. 21, was no surprise to local businesspeople, said Dolores Fabiano, executive director of South Niagara Chambers of Commerce.
“I think everyone has been pretty consistent with the message that safety comes first,” she said.
“I think all our businesses are on the same page where, yes, we want to get the border reopened and we need to get it reopened, but that can’t come at the (expense) of the health and safety of our people.”
Since the border was closed March 21 to contain the spread of COVID-19, crossing by vehicle has been limited to people performing essential work between the two countries, with some exemptions on compassionate grounds.
“The numbers have really been rising in the U.S.,” said Fabiano, noting Canada is also facing a second wave of the coronavirus.
“I think everybody was hoping that we could get it — especially on that side — better under control, and it just hasn’t happened. It just hasn’t.”
On Monday, Canada had recorded about 198,000 total COVID-19 cases since the start of the year, and 9,760 deaths including just more than 3,000 in Ontario.
The U.S. has had nearly 8.2 million cases so far, and nearly 220,000 deaths including 33,000 in New York state.
On this side of the Niagara River, there have been 1,268 positive cases and 68 deaths, according to Niagara Region Public Health.
On the American side, Erie County — with a population roughly twice the size of Niagara’s — had reported 12,414 cases as of Monday and 708 deaths, according to the county website.
Fabiano said she has heard from some owners who fear their businesses might not survive if Niagara’s caseload continues to grow and it is put back into some sort of modified economic lockdown.
“So we’re hoping like heck it doesn’t come to that,” she added.
The impact of seven months of travel restrictions is being felt at both of Niagara’s border bridges.
At the Peace Bridge, non-commercial traffic is down about 75 per cent this year, according to its website.
Not including trucks, at the Queenston-Lewiston Bridge only 7,706 automobiles crossed U.S.-bound in September. Just four buses entered the U.S. via that bridge last month.
That pales compared to September 2019, when 118,358 automobiles and 306 buses made the same trip.