By Bob Chisholm, President, Fredericton Chamber of Commerce
As we get closer to the end of this historic year, I want to look back at the year and share with you my list of heroes who made tough decisions during extremely tough times.
Premier Blaine Higgs and Cabinet Ministers
Kris Austin
David Coon
Kevin Vickers
Dr. Jennifer Russell
Despite the politics of a minority parliament, back in March 2020, these people came together as “Team New Brunswick” and closed our province to combat this new and deadly disease. While other regions of our country stayed open for interprovincial travel, the prudent decision to close New Brunswick was made.
On a per capita basis, New Brunswick and the rest of Atlantic Canada were nowhere near the numbers of COVID-19 infections the rest of Canada encountered and, except for British Columbia, all of these other provinces did not have the added challenge of a minority government.
Once we were months into this situation, our premier and Dr. Russell worked with their Atlantic counterparts to create the “Atlantic Bubble”, which provided a delicate balance of keeping us safe and enabling much needed travel in the Atlantic region.
I take no pride in highlighting the following situation, but the provinces from Quebec to B.C. all had two things in common: they never shut their borders to other provinces, and today they all have massive challenges with COVID-19.
While the leaders designed the plan, it was the frontline people in healthcare, EMS, fire, policing and Service New Brunswick who encountered the highest risk every day, but still did their jobs to support our province.
We all hope to get back to normal soon and enjoy travel inside and outside our region and forget about this terrible disease, but I also hope that we do not forget about those mentioned above and the things they did to keep us very safe.
Thank you, “Team New Brunswick”
Bob Chisholm
President
Bob Chisholm is the current President of the Fredericton Chamber and the Owner/Operator of McDonald’s Restaurants in Fredericton. For the past sixty-five years McDonald’s has been the Global leader in the fast casual dinning sector.