Andrea Horwath Wants The Province To Stay Locked Down & We Don’t Know If She Is Serious

Whatever your opinion is on the Ontario-wide lockdowns, the one thing that is certain in all of this is that it sometimes feels like politicians are forgetting that the province is bigger than the Greater Toronto Area.

Once again on Thursday we saw evidence of this when Andrea Horwath called on Doug Ford to keep Ontario locked down.

The leader of the provinces official opposition called on the 26th Premier of Ontario Doug Ford to keep the entire province locked down. This coming in as regions like Greater Sudbury are having a dramatic drop in cases of Covid-19.

In a tweet sent out Thursday evening, Andrea Horwath proclaimed that Ontario is at a “crossroads”. She continued on, urging Doug Ford to choose what she called “public health over money”.

Data modelling makes it clear Ontario is at a crossroads. We can save lives by continuing public health measures a bit longer, or re-open too soon and allow the variant to run rampant.

I’m urging Mr. Ford to make a better choice, and choose public health over money this time.

— Andrea Horwath (@AndreaHorwath) February 11, 2021

Instead of calling on the province to develop a unique solution for regions that have very little community spread, she opted to call for a lockdown of Ontario.

Greater Sudbury Mayor Brian Bigger and Ward 7 Councillor Mike Jakubo have called for stricter measures such as creating a Northern Bubble. This initiative has also been met with opposition from politicians of neighbouring cities.

I spoke with Premier @fordnation last night about my request for a northern bubble and the implementation of safety measures like checkpoints to stem traffic of unnecessary travelers coming north.

You can see my full statement here: https://t.co/kb7OlaoF2W

— Brian Bigger (@BiggerSudbury) February 3, 2021

Nonetheless, with case numbers dropping in Northern Ontario there are obviously better options than locking everyone down for longer periods of time than necessary. It is also seems irresponsible for leaders of any party to stoke fears into communities that have very little transmission of the virus.