The supply chain, when a state of emergency could be declared in Timmins, and the provincial essential service list were all up for discussion in a virtual town to talk about COVID-19.
More than 100 people tuned into the session hosted by the Timmins Chamber of Commerce featuring Timmins MPP Gilles Bisson, Mayor George Pirie, and Timmins-James Bay MP Charlie Angus.
The hour-long session allowed people to ask a variety questions about the impact and response to the COVID-19 pandemic directly to the local leaders. The full recording is available at the top of this article.
When it comes to declaring an emergency in the City of Timmins, Pirie said it's talked about daily.
“This is a healthcare emergency, the lead on that will always be the health unit. The tipping point to us, to me, the trigger point is going to be when our healthcare services are overwhelmed. We’re not there yet. We know that the Timmins and District Hospital is working on their surge plan,” Pirie said.
There are steps that the municipality has taken to help residents through the pandemic.
At this week's council meeting, the interest on property taxes was waived for the duration of the crisis and approving the 2020 tax rates and ratios was deferred.
Waiving the interest is one of the key recommendations the chamber made to the city in how it can help businesses alleviate financial pressures.
Eliminated parking fees in business areas was also on the list.
“As you know, we’ve enacted the essential services and we’ve cut our staffing in relation to that and part of the staff that is non-essential service are those that are collecting fees on parking metres," said Pirie in the town hall.
Local mines have also made changes to the way they operate in response to COVID-19.
“What most mines are doing...they’re limiting access to who can come in on their properties, they’re screening people as they come into properties and as much as possible they’re trying to meet the two metre rule. For example, the cages that are going down at those various mines, they’re taking more cages down so they don’t have men sort of on top of eachother,” said Bisson.
He said the supply chain may become an issue.
"Because a lot of these businesses need to get supplies in order to continue running and depending on where they come from they may be affected. Now that hasn’t been decided yet, they’re trying to source some of their materials that they get from existing suppliers,” he said.
There was also talk about the province's lengthy list of essential services allowed to stay open.
“The government, I think, is caught in a tough spot and it’s an interesting and very difficult decision to make, what do you shut down? I’ve talked to people in our community from both the business community and individuals who say shut it all down. Shut it all down for two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, whatever it takes let’s get this under control and that’ll be the end of it. But on the flip side, people are worried what does that mean to the economy?” Bisson said.
Angus said the focus is on watching the COVID-19 curve and where it's going to go.
“We are now probably just entering the beginning of the real storm because of the last month and particularly the last two weeks, whatever COVID was out there is going to start to hit pretty quickly now. We’ve done major, major isolation over the last 10 days, mostly the last seven days. That should slow it, but if our efforts aren’t sufficient you will see what had to be done in Europe where they would move to total shutdown,” he said.
At this point, Angus said the feeling is that society has to keep moving to some degree, and people need groceries and the pharmacy.
