With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1425269
ON THE RADAR ( the informer ) GRAHAM ROUMIEU O n August 24, Shus- wap woodworker Sean Cahill started a Facebook group called BC Businesses Against Vax Pass, quickly changing the name to BC Businesses Against Health Pass. His goal, Cahill told an interviewer, was "to find a place to go have lunch...without having to divulge my personal medical history." In his words, the group "took off like a rocket sled on rails." Within a week, it had more than 105,000 members and was still growing. Hundreds of posts appeared from small B.C. businesses proclaiming they "do not discriminate"—meaning they don't require customers to wear masks or present evi- dence of vaccination. A group administrator soon listed the anti-passport businesses in a phone app. They included hair salons, spas, gyms, tattoo parlours, realtors, cafés, a blues band, a Pouce Coupe pizza joint and at least one practitioner of "certified energy work and metaphysical instruction." Squamish filmmaker April Chandler joined the group in that first week. Chandler, who runs video production com- pany Mephobia as well as Blue River Productions, says the tone was largely positive. "I don't want to take people down," she explains. "This group has level- headed people standing up for personal choice and freedom." In addition to her skepticism about vaccines' effectiveness— "there's always another vari- ant, and another"—Chandler says she was disturbed by an incident when she accidentally crossed into the U.S. while at- tempting to visit Canada Cus- toms: she was detained by U.S. Customs and swabbed. "I am registered in the FBI database now," she says. "This is the be- ginning. Where will it stop?" Group moderators warned members to keep things posi- tive. They denied any connec- tion to the September 1 protests that took place outside some B.C. hospitals and insisted they would delete offensive content. "We're not anti-any- thing," Cahill said. "We are Vaxing Behaviour The provincial government's vaccine passport has left some local businesses fuming—as a visit to Facebook makes clear by Steve Burgess C OV I D -1 9 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2021 BCBUSINESS 19 CALLING THE SHOTS As of September 18, B.C. ranked 7th among the 13 provinces and territories for share of residents 12 and older fully vaccinated against COVID-19 In a July survey of 680 business leaders, the BC Chamber of Commerce asked respondents if they planned to get a COVID vaccine The survey also asked businesses if they were interested in implementing COVID rapid testing at their workplace SOURCES: GOVERNMENT OF CANADA, BC CHAMBER OF COMMERCE NO. 1 PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND 85% NO. 7 B.C. 80% NO. 13 SASKATCHEWAN 71.60% CANADA: 79.63% Numbers do not total 100 due to rounding ■ ALREADY VACCINATED ■ YES ■ NO ■ NO ■ YES ■ HAVEN'T HEARD OF SUCH TESTING ■ UNSURE, LOOKING FOR MORE INFORMATION 74% 18% 8% 52% 24% 9% 14%