Mayors welcome call-out from Dr. Henry

Leaders in several towns and cities around B.C. say they did not feel singled out when the provincial health officer pointed to their municipalities by name in an address earlier this week.

Rather, mayors like Mike Little at the District of North Vancouver welcomed Dr. Bonnie Henry's remarks, calling them the clearest explanation to date of the province's recommendation for people to avoid travelling to other communities.

“Frankly, in the District of North Vancouver, we still are seeing huge volumes of people who are coming to our parks. … That is non-essential travel. People should be absolutely getting outdoors and exercising, but they need to be doing it in their own neighbourhoods,” Little said. “I think it was so much more clear than what we had had, which was being interpreted as meaning travel was allowed.”

Henry's namecheck of specific municipalities came Monday during a news conference with Health Minister Adrian Dix, when she said to get to the end of the pandemic as quickly as possible there are things that we need to do now.

“That includes staying home, staying in your immediate neighbourhood as much as possible. If you live in North Van, you should not be travelling to Langley or to Richmond. If you live in the Lower Mainland, you should not be travelling to the Island. If you live in Penticton, you should not be going to Sun Peaks or Oliver or Kelowna right now. We need to only do those types of travel if it is essential, and nothing more,” Henry said.

Scott Lear, a professor at Simon Fraser University's faculty of health sciences, said he believed that overall, messaging from health officials in B.C. during the pandemic has been good, with some caveats, including a concern around transparency.

“It's clear when there's lockdown. It's easy to be clear at the extremes. … Just tell us what to do and we'll do it,” Lear said. “Wash your hands. Wear a mask. Those are black-and-white type things. Those lend themselves to clear messaging.”

But in cases where restrictions come and go, or when there are orders on top of recommendations, that's when communication becomes challenging, he said. Lear offered as less clear examples the broad recommendation for people to avoid non-essential travel and the suggestion for people to stick to their local ski hill.

“How do you define non-essential? People can define that differently,” he said. “And again, local can mean something different to different people. … Dr. Henry has mentioned not to look for loopholes, but we do.”

Lear said the province needed to be more transparent and provide more data around the recommendations it was trying to communicate and he said B.C. is the worst province in the country in doing so.

“By being more transparent, it builds public trust, which is important to get people to follow orders and guidance,” he said.

Al Raine, the mayor of Sun Peaks, said he hadn't been aware his municipality was mentioned by name by Henry. He said the community wasn't getting many visitors right now, given it's between seasons and most businesses are closed.