Saint John Mayor Don Darling says he’s shocked that a municipal councillor from Ontario recently entered New Brunswick to research and monitor how restaurants are reopening.
“I wondered if it was from a satire piece,” Don Darling told Global News.
“Is this actually possible?”
Stephen Wright, a city councillor in Peterborough, Ont., says he arrived in New Brunswick in mid-April and stayed for 11 days.
New Brunswick’s borders are closed to non-essential travel, and under the the state of emergency, people who do enter are required to self-isolate for 14 days.
Wright says he had no contact with anyone while he was in New Brunswick and that he stayed at an Airbnb. He says he paid for gas at the pumps and ordered food or went through drive-thrus.
He says he is self-isolating now that he’s back home, although he had a meeting with a concerned citizen May 26, so he wore a mask.
A spokesperson with the Peterborough mayor’s office says this trip was not a council directive, it was not funded by the city, and the mayor wasn’t aware of the trip until Coun. Wright returned to Ontario.
Darling says he learned of the story from many emails and social media tags on Saturday after a news report circulated in Peterborough. Darling took to Twitter to say that the province was investigating, and that “I’m not sure what could be said to convince me, that this was not a reckless trip.”
To that concern, Wright says New Brunswick has been progressive in its reopening of the economy, and he wanted to see how restaurants were reopening as his city faces a mult-million dollar budget shortfall.
“I would say what would be reckless and irresponsible is for me, as a policy maker, to not get firsthand knowledge of how policies are going to have to change,” Wright says.
Wright says he visited Greater Moncton and Fredericton along the way.
Before he left Ontario, Wright he says he called several provincial offices — including the premier’s — to get a definition of essential travel, but didn’t get a clear answer.
“The constitutionality of restricting a Canadian’s right to move freely across this country… That is the real issue,” Wright says.
“If the concern is about somebody coming into your province and contaminating or spreading the virus, why not provide tests at your borders?”
At New Brunswick’s first Sunday COVID-19 briefing, Premier Blaine Higgs said the trip doesn’t seem necessary.
“It’s under full investigation,” Higgs said, “because it does not seem like a legitimate reason to come into the province.”
“We will evaluate just what questions were asked, but more importantly, what answers were given,” Higgs said.
Meanwhile, a statement from the New Brunswick government to Global News Monday says, in part, “Our priority is protecting New Brunswickers and border controls are key.”
“The investigation is ongoing and we will be reviewing our records and following up with the City of Peterborough to determine if this was work travel authorized by the City,” reads the statement from Geoffrey Downey, a provincial spokesperson.
“I think this behaviour and this road trip and this sightseeing tour was absolutely wrong,” Darling says. “I’m really disappointed.”
“I think the mayor and the councillor need to apologize to the people of New Brunswick for this lack of judgement.”
Wright says he doesn’t need to give an apology to New Brunswickers about his research trip.
“I’m doing my job.”
- What is a halal mortgage? How interest-free home financing works in Canada
- Ontario doctors offer solutions to help address shortage of family physicians
- Capital gains changes are ‘really fair,’ Freeland says, as doctors cry foul
- LGBTQ2 rallies will be held across Canada next month. Here’s what to know
Comments