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Dale Boyd

Osoyoos Times 

South Okanagan-West Kootenay MP Richard Cannings is back in his riding after a period of self-isolation in Ottawa while he awaited the test results for COVID-19.

Cannings was cleared Monday to “go back to whatever a normal life looks like in these times.”

“I’ll be just trying to stay at home, but not isolated to the extent I was for the last five days,” Cannings said.

He was expecting to hear the federal government announce the closure of the Canada-U.S. border Monday, and along with B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix criticized Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for leaving the border open to U.S. residents. On Monday Washington State had seen 772 cases and 42 deaths as a result of COVID-19, one of the largest hotspots in the U.S. — with Gov. Jay Inslee issuing a statewide shutdown of bars and restaurants Sunday night.

• Read more: Canada closes borders with exceptions for residents, U.S., B.C. discourages travel from U.S.

“Trudeau just made the excuse that our economies are too integrated for (closing the border),” Cannings said. “We’ll see what happens in the next day or two. That might change. It does seem certainly when you have Washington State next door, people are wondering why that border is still open.”

Exceptions for the closure of the Canadian border include Canadian citizens, U.S. citizens, immediate family members of citizens, air crews and diplomats.

Cannings said he is hearing stories of daily border travellers in Grand Forks and Osoyoos being told to self-isolate for two weeks by border guards after returning from a half-hour trip. Cannings said he would not advise making the trip down to the U.S. for gas or other daily commodities.

“Unless you are very careful, and only gone for half an hour, and don’t talk to anybody or touch anything,” Cannings said. “But these are times when everybody has to change their habits to stop the spread of this, to flatten the curve.”

When it comes to the economic impact, Cannings is concerned about those who cannot afford to work from home, or don’t have paid sick leave.

“Especially people in part-time jobs, jobs that don’t have sick leave benefits, are told to stay home and need the rent. We need to make sure those people are covered or taken care of in some way so they can pay the rent, they can buy food for their families,” Cannings said. “There’s all sorts of moving parts to this and we don’t want people to get left behind.”

Many part-time workers don’t qualify for employment insurance, he said, and the Okanagan will take a specific economic hit with its many tourism and service sector workers, Cannings said.

• Read more: BC Centre for Disease Control guidelines and information on COVID-19

“The Okanagan is really sensitive to this because of the tourism and the service industry that really so many people rely on here. Those restaurants, hotels, motels are going to be really hard hit,” Cannings said. “It’s going to be very tough for a lot of people from the part-time worker to the hotel owner. So we’ll see what happens, how long this lasts, how deep these actions go. It’s a very fluid situation. It’s changing day-to-day.”

The MP said he is not going to “hide away in his house for the next two weeks,” however he is not unnecessarily exposing himself to groups of people.

“I’m not going to go to the mall, I’m not hoarding toilet paper,” Cannings said. “Our office is operational but it’s not open to the public.”