Canada’s Wonderland actively plans to reopen, seven days after letter is written by Attractions Ontario to the Premier

BY SIMONE J. SMITH

In light of not being allowed to open, Attractions Ontario believes the government has a duty to these businesses to help them recover the money they spent in vain. We feel that many of the decisions, which impacted our industry, this

past summer did not stem from the science behind the virus.” Troy Young (CEO of Attractions Ontario)

I am sharing this story because what we are seeing now is a movement of solidarity. More and more business owners, and citizens of Canada are recognizing the issues that have been presented with these COVID-19 lockdowns, and they are speaking out.

In October of last year, Ryan Vande Vooren, owner of GlowZone 360 contacted me about concerns he and other business owners had about banks profiting from the funds and guarantees on loans. In a heartfelt letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Ryan spoke on behalf of himself and other businesses. He was concerned that the Royal Bank of Canada was making profit off the backs of the people that the Prime Minister had given them funds to help (Short-term gain for long-term pain; Business owner speaks out against banks).

I received another letter from Ryan, this time he was speaking on behalf of Attractions Ontario. He had sent me a letter written by Troy Young, the CEO of Attractions Ontario. Ryan is on the Board of Directors and he told me right away that he was in full support of everything in the letter. The letter was written on January 21^st, 2021 and was addressed to:

Premier Doug Ford

• Hon. Peter Bethlenfalvy, Minister of Finance
• Hon. Christine Elliott, Minister of Health
• Hon. Lisa MacLeod, Minister of Heritage, Sport, Tourism and Culture Industries
• Hon. Victor Fedeli, Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade
• Hon. Greg Rickford, Minister of Energy, Northern Development and Mines
• Andrea Horwath, MPP, Leader of the NDP
• Paul Miller, MPP, Opposition Critic, Tourism and Sport
• Steven Del Duca, Leader of the Liberal Party of Ontario
• Beth Potter, President of the Tourism Industry Association of Ontario
• Kevin Nichol, President of the Ontario Snow Resorts Association

Mr Young was very polite, but firm in his requests. He acknowledged the unenviable challenges that the government have had to deal with in the last ten months. He was empathetic about the difficulties that the government must be facing trying to balance the economic needs and the health risks posed by the pandemic.

Notwithstanding, he did feel that there were times when the risk to Ontarians’ health had been overstated, especially when it came to the operations of the members of Attractions Ontario and other tourism businesses.

During the limited operations this summer, there were no outbreaks of COVID-19 attributed to tourist attractions. This was possible because proactive steps were taken to ensure safe operations. They had provided the government with safe operations guidelines from international bodies, such as: the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions and the World Water Parks Association.

Attractions Ontario credits Minister Lisa MacLeod for being a tireless champion for them, and they want Premier Ford to empower her to present a plan that allows the attractions industry to open province-wide safely and in a way that makes economic sense.

One way he noted, to achieve this clarity is to remove the arbitrary caps applied during the previous guidelines. He strongly feels that the hard caps of 10, 25, 50, or 100 applied to those indoor and outdoor attractions, which were subject to them are unfair. He pointed out that grocery stores, big box stores, and other retail activities were not subject to these caps. In general, he believes that retail operations had a less onerous standard applied to them than did any of the tourism businesses.

He then presented another issue, which concerned: amusement parks, waterparks and now ski resorts. During the summer, the government led amusement parks and waterparks to believe they would be able to open when Ontario moved to stage 3. Members of Attractions Ontario made investments with this understanding. In good faith, these businesses, following the government’s directions, invested money in preparing their operations for reopening. Then, with little notice, everything was reversed.

He expressed bewilderment about the fact that if the government never intended to allow them to open, they should have said so early on during the pandemic so that these business operators would not have made investments they would never recover.

He highlights the fact that the amusement parks, waterparks and now snow resorts have borne a higher level of negative financial pressure with the recent lockdowns This added financial pressure may end up closing some of these operations permanently.

SOMETHING HAPPENED!

On January 28^th, 2021, an announcement was made that Canada’s Wonderland will be opening on May 14^th, 2021, and they are looking forward to welcoming patrons back to what they say will be an amazing season.

It has been reported that Cedar Fair, Canada’s Wonderland owner and operator, also announced that Cedar Point and Kings Dominion amusement parks would reopen on May 14^th, and May 22^nd, 2021.

Naturally, they will have some heat on them, especially because they plan to re-open, but they are not deterred. Other news sources are saying that they are unclear as to how this happened, and I can’t say for sure, but if this letter was read by Premier Ford and the other people it was sent to, it could have had some bearings on what has occurred.

Without the right connections, we will never know for sure, but what this does go to show is that a group of individuals joined together and stood up. Magically, changes happened. I do hope that our communities will truly revel in the idea that there is strength in numbers.