During a cabinet meeting on Thursday, Nova Scotia business minister Geoff MacLellan said an official bubble plan to be implemented among the Atlantic provinces would be a good idea if Public Health measures and protocols would allow it.
The bubble plan would allow visitors and tourists from the Maritimes to cross the borders of other Atlantic Canadian provinces and vice versa.
“Everything is on the table in terms of what we can potentially do,” said MacLellan.
“Once we figure out where we are from the public health perspective and what the realities are at the borders is really key in this.”
He said the province wants to bring in as many visitors and tourists as they can, but would need Public Health to lead in on that.
In the meantime, MacLellan said the province is working to understand what the financial impact will be for tourism operators who have not been able to open up yet for the tourism season, and what type of help they will need.
“As we learned from many incidents, the loans and deferrals isn’t going to help a business to keep afloat,” he said.
“It’s not prudent to create an overarching program.”
While there are no possible timeline of when tourism operators can open, the minister said the province understands the looming uncertainty and the potential negative effect for the tourism season.
“We can’t go anywhere from a tourism perspective rebuild until the borders will open,” said the minister.
“We know the urgency…what we do in terms of policy and assessment is really dependent on that timeline.”