Have you been up to Barrie or Orillia lately?
Depending on your plans, it'll cost a pretty penny.
Out-of-town visitors must pay $10 an hour to a maximum of $50 to park in Barrie. The previous hourly rate was $3 an hour and the daily maximum was $20.
In Orillia, visitors will need to pay $50 to park near municipal beaches and $50 to launch a boat. For residents, both are free.
Premier Ford was asked about the increased rates and did not like what he heard. "I'd say it's price gouging. When you're charging $3 and all of a sudden it jumps up to $50 that's absolute price gouging. Or if it goes from $10 and you're doubling it to $20. For parking, $50 up in Barrie?!"
Ford now plans on speaking with Barrie MPP Doug Downie, who also happens to be Ontario's attorney general, and Orillia MPP Jill Dunlop. "Do you know what I can't stand? I can't stand when companies or governments take advantage of people in a crisis and they start gouging these people. People can barely put food on their tables, they can barely pay the rent, barely pay their mortgage, people are holding on by their fingertips and some municipal government wants to gouge you?"
He calls it disgusting. "We'll get the attorney general to look into that and find out what's going on up there. But, be fair to everyone. People are coming up there, maybe to go for lunch or dinner and spend their money in local stores, and you want to gouge them at $50 a shot?!"
The municipalities say the hike in pricing is to keep visitors at bay during the pandemic.
Steve Clarke, the mayor of Orillia, says this is so counter-intuitive for them because they love inviting visitors to the city. "It has nothing to do with a cash grab. Quite frankly, the cost to implement, devise, operate, train, and redeploy staff has been very costly. It's strictly a COVID health and safety measure.
"We were faced with a situation where we had an overwhelming and uncontrollable numbers of visitors in our parks. We had some great behaviour by many visitors but we also had some very poor, even reckless behaviour," he adds.
Jeff Lehman, the mayor of Barrie, has issued the following statement:
"Perhaps the Premier is not aware of the overcrowding problem on Barrie and Simcoe County beaches that has resulted partly from the Province’s decision to proceed with a phased reopening. Otherwise he would have understood that the parking prices are not an attempt to profit, but an attempt to deal with the lack of distancing and overcrowding we have seen, as well as help recoup some of the costs associated with these problems. We don’t want people’s $50 and we don’t want to issue a ton of parking tickets or bylaw tickets – we want to reduce the crowds and help make sure people stay safe.
During COVID all levels of government have had to be creative and use the limited tools we have to deal with the consequences of the pandemic. We have typically all worked well together and so these comments are disappointing. I’d be pleased to invite him to Barrie to view the situation and discuss this issue if he would like."