MOM braces for COVID-19 impact
By Luke Barry
Ottawa Markets closed public access to the interior common spaces of the ByWard Market building on March 18 at the direction of the Government of Ontario and Ottawa Public Health in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
While many issues still remain to be determined, it’s perhaps wise to start with what is known. Marché Ottawa Markets (MOM) is the entity that manages the ByWard Market, the Parkdale Market and the building at 55 ByWard Market Square. The rest and by far greater part of the ByWard Market precinct is made up of over 600 independent businesses. On average, the Market has 50,000 visitors every weekend in the summer months.
Over 51% of the total direct tourism-related employment in Ottawa –which amounts to over 15,600 jobs–stems from the retail and the and beverage businesses in the ByWard Market Precinct.
COVID-19 has now become the ultimate disrupter.
What is unknown is how long the restrictions on businesses and on mass gatherings will last, what the social and economic fallout will be, or the legacy this crisis will leave behind.
It’s not exactly a scenario newly minted MOM executive director Zach Dayler envisioned having to grapple with in his first few weeks at the helm.“We’re going to see this work its way through our operations, I think, for a long time to come,” he said. “Like any business, we’re taking this two-week period that’s in front of us to evaluate the situation. We’re considering what things we can do if it’s to go for another two-week period or a month or if it’s to go on.”
MOM’s objective is clear: to maximize the Markets’ potential to be unique year-round destinations for the purchase of local produce, products, goods and services that meet the needs of local and city-wide residents as well as tourists.
Dayler stated that the plan moving forward will focus on being flexible.
“There’s the making sure that those who have food offerings can still do that within the context of what’s allowed,” he said. “But also we’re going to be living with this rule around gatherings for I don’t know how long and so what does that mean for the Market?”
The executive director maintains an optimistic outlook and is hopeful that this situation will be a short-term speed bump.
“I have really a lot of excitement for what the Market can be, where we’re going with the Market,; the future is really bright,” Dayler said. “So I don’t want to lose sight of the larger vision, but in the interim we are looking at how we can still provide a Market experience even if we do have those distance requirements and what does that look like.”
A key point of emphasis for Ottawa Markets will be on the producers who shape the Market.
“In this time, everybody needs support but we’re also going to have to make sure that those local producers are feeling supported as well,” Dayler explained. “Those folks are going to be hit with no temporary foreign service workers, or even just having the local kid coming and working the farm They’re not doing that because of isolation or whatever it is, so we don’t even really fully know what the impact is going to be on that side of the equation.”
Unfortunately, but understandably, it seems that at this point there are a lot more questions than answers swirling.
“Best case scenario, we wake up in another week and we’re slowly getting back to normal and we have a bit of a stalled experience,” the director said. “Worst case scenario would be obviously that you’re seeing these mass gatherings closed down for months, through to the summer. At that point, I think we need to be creative and we need to make sure that we’re doing what we can to make sure people can access the products.”
Dayler noted he would like to see the businesses in the building at 55 ByWard Market Square open so that income and employment continues, but health and safety are paramount.
“At the end of the day, I just want people to be safe and if we can’t provide a safe experience then we have to absolutely heed the guidance of public health and that’s our overarching direction,” he said.
When normalcy resumes, tourism numbers may take quite a while to reset but Ottawa Markets anticipates a real appetite for what the Market offer to the local community in particular. “We have to do an extra special job at making people feel comfortable in that environment because I think people are going to still take some time to come around to hanging out with each other in public space,” Dayler said. “We need to make sure that we’re setting up a product in a place for locals to come back to; that’s going to be really important. I think that’s going to be the first step is rebuilding that community pride and if people see the community out and about, t