The MPP for Bay of Quinte says moving the entire province into a lockdown was a “tough decision”.
All of Ontario will go into a four-week lockdown starting on Boxing Day with MPP Todd Smith telling Quinte News the driving force behind the decision is to protect hospital capacity.
Smith says even though the local numbers have been improving lately, the regional approach to combating COVID-19 hasn’t been working everywhere.
“The real fear is that if we had a regional approach to this lockdown and did remain open in those green and yellow areas in particular, that people from the hot zones would come into those zones and we’d continue to see the virus spread into our region, causing more problems for our health officials and hospital occupancy.”
Smith says he feels bad for small business owners who will be forced to close during lockdown but points out that since our region will now be in the highest level of Ontario’s COVID-19 Response Framework, those business owners will be eligible for more supports.
Smith says while they won’t be placing stricter rules on big box stores outside of capacity limits, small business owners will now be eligible for government-funded relief programs, to the tune of $10,000 to $20,000.
“These businesses will be able to apply for the electricity rebate, which is a significant rebate and the tax rebate as well. And again, now that we will be in a lockdown zone they’ll be able to access the rent relief program from the Federal Government as well. So there’s a real robust support program there for small businesses.”
Smith says depending on how things go, some parts of the province may be able to open up sooner, but says it just comes down to people staying home for the next few weeks “so we can get the caseload and COVID under control”.
