KITCHENER -- Premier Doug Ford said Tuesday that cottagers should be allowed to visit their seasonal properties, despite the threats from some cottage town mayors to fine people who do so.
He said at a news conference that he can only "hold the big gates back" for so long.
"How do you tell people that are paying taxes and paying the bills for the vast majority of the people there to stay home?" Ford asked.
The epicenter of the argument may be just on the shores of Lake Erie.
County officials in Haldimand and Norfolk Counties are threatening a $5,000 fine per day for visiting cottagers.
Section 22 of the Health Protection and Promotion Act allows for the fine to be handed out to out-of-towners.
It's obscure and could be considered heavy-handed, but Norfolk County Mayor Kristal Chopp says, in this pandemic, it's necessary to keep the hospital running smoothly.
"It is a massive explosion in our population, again, for two municipalities that have eight ventilators across both counties," she told CTV News in an interview on Tuesday.
Further north in Muskoka sits $15 billion-worth of property, 80 per cent of it owned by seasonal residents.
That's a lot of taxpayer might that's been watching from afar as water levels rise around their million-dollar properties.
Bracebridge Mayor Graydon Smith wonders how the plan in Haldimand-Norfolk will keep people away.
"I'm not sure what a travel ban would do at this point and how it would even work," he says.
With Victoria Day fast approaching, we may soon find out.
Chopp said Tuesday they had gone three straight days without a positive COVID-19 test, and that it will follow the province's lead in opening up gradually.
In her eyes, though, that doesn't mean letting hundreds of cottagers through over a long weekend.
