Michel and Édine Rivest at their trailer in the Breezy Hill RV Resort on Florida's Atlantic coast.The Globe and Mail
Édine and Michel Rivest were sitting on the veranda of their trailer in the Breezy Hill RV Resort one morning this week, gazing out at coconut palms under a pale blue sky. They were pleased not to be back home in Trois-Rivières, where the temperature had plunged to -18 C.
At Breezy Hill, in Pompano Beach on Florida’s Atlantic coast, it was a balmy 26 C.
“It’s been perfect here this winter. Better than in Quebec,” Ms. Rivest, 66, said. “Here you can walk outside. You can enjoy the sun.”
The couple, retirees who used to run a construction company, are among the small flock of Canadian snowbirds who made the trek this year – despite the pandemic, border restrictions and repeated pleas from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau not to leave the country.
In a typical winter at Breezy Hill – a mix of RVs and bungalow-like trailer homes – the park is roughly 98-per-cent full of Quebeckers. This year, only about a tenth showed up.
But the few who came are glad they did. On top of the usual attractions of sun, sand and sea, they were also vaccinated against COVID-19 months before they would have received a jab in Canada.
And they shrug off the critics back home who say it is irresponsible to travel abroad during a global pandemic.
“We think that they are jealous,” said Mr. Rivest, 69.
Most of the Rivests’s friends were too scared to travel, put off by reports of pandemic bedlam in the United States. But amid the icy blast of winter back home, they now all wish they’d gone ahead with their Florida holidays, Ms. Rivest said.
In a typical season Breezy Hill would be 98-per-cent populated by Quebeckers, but far fewer came this year due to COVID-19.The Globe and Mail
“There is so much fear in Quebec,” she said, pointing to several adjacent empty trailers. “Ultimately, they all regretted it.”
A few doors down, François Gaboury insisted it was better for mind and body to be in Florida than sequestered in his house in Saint-Jérôme, a Montreal bedroom community.
“You stay healthier by being here four months of the year. You automatically add 10 years to your life,” said Mr. Gaboury, 73, the retired owner of a garage-door company.
By any measure, the pandemic has been worse in Florida than back home in Quebec. The state of 21.5 million has seen almost 33,000 deaths. That’s more than in all of Canada, which has had 22,600 deaths in a population of almost 38 million. Even compared directly with the worst-hit province, Florida’s death rate per 100,000 people is higher, 151 to Quebec’s 129.
But Mr. Gaboury and his neighbours maintain that the problem in the Sunshine State isn’t the snowbirds.
People in the park take the same precautions they would in Canada, they say. They wear masks when going out, avoid eating in restaurants and limit socializing to one or two other couples. They insist they are nothing like the spring breakers congregating at tailgate parties and doing keg stands on the beach.
“People who come here to spend three or four months, it’s like going to a winter chalet,” Mr. Gaboury said. “It’s not the same as people who come in for a week to party.”
Nor are Breezy Hill’s denizens troubled by the horror stories about Canadians who have contracted COVID-19 in the U.S.
In January, Wayne Mailman of Aylesford, N.S., was stuck with a $300,000 medical bill after falling ill at his winter home in Largo, Fla., and getting airlifted back to Canada. Earlier this month, CTV highlighted the case of Elvira Sosing, an Ottawa woman whose family has turned to crowdfunding to pay for her to return to Canada after she was hospitalized in Florida.
Claudette Jourdain says she's received a COVID-19 vaccine while in Florida.The Globe and Mail
Claudette Jourdain, 70, said she made sure to buy private health insurance before travelling south. If anything happens to her, she said, she’s covered.
Plus, the U.S. has one distinct advantage over Canada on the health care front. “We have received a vaccine here. In Canada, I wouldn’t have it yet. Who is worse off?” said Ms. Jourdain, a retired accountant from Valleyfield, Que., as she stood on the patio outside her trailer.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has prioritized vaccinating senior citizens over essential workers. Breezy Hill’s residents began getting their shots as early as January at a nearby mass vaccination site. Canada, by contrast, has suffered vaccine supply shortages, and its mass vaccination effort only began to gather steam this month.
If the park’s inhabitants have one complaint, it’s that the place feels eerily quiet with most of their friends missing. Row upon row of trailers are shuttered, some with “For Sale” signs in the windows. Many of the RV pads are empty. All of Breezy Hill’s usual activities – square dancing, shuffleboard, pool parties, communal meals, knitting circles, cribbage and English lessons – have been cancelled.
And with the land border between the two countries closed, Canadians who used to drive to Florida have looked for workarounds.
Linda Lamoureux and Stéphane Cadorette paid commercial shippers $750 to transport their RV across the border, from Vancouver to Blaine, Wash. They then flew to Seattle, rented a car and drove to pick up their vehicle. Ms. Jourdain paid $1,700 to have her SUV shipped to Florida.
But they all said it was worthwhile.
Linda Lamoureux, right, and Stéphane Cadorette had their RV shipped across the border by a commercial company.The Globe and Mail
“If you’re cautious, it’s no more dangerous here than in Canada,” said Ms. Lamoureux, 52, who owns a Montreal human resources company, as she and Mr. Cadorette, a 51-year-old retired firefighter, mounted bicycles to ride to the beach.
“Here, we can do what we want and avoid the trouble spots. We can go outside,” said Térèse Laliberté, 81, a property manager from Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, as she headed out for a round of golf.
Mr. Rivest said he was filling his days boating, fishing and making physically distanced visits to the beach.
Ms. Jourdain, meanwhile, has discovered a new pastime this winter: teasing people back home stuck shovelling snow while she sits in the sunshine.
“I do FaceTime with my friends and say, ‘See what you’re missing?’” she said. “They almost hang up on me.”
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