A note to our readers from Hugh Mackenzie:
For the next four weeks, I am going to take a break from Listen Up! It is time to recharge, refresh, and explore new concepts to write about. In the meantime, we have lined up four guest commentators for Listen Up. Three of them regularly comment on Doppler articles, and they all will speak to items of local or national interest. I know you will enjoy them, and I will be with you again on March 7th. Today’s article is by Muskoka entrepreneur Brian Tapley.
I never thought I’d see the day when I was invited to write a piece for Doppler, let alone the commentary portion. I’ll tell you now, I’m a retired engineer, so that maybe is not auspicious, but I said I’d give it a try, so bear with me.
I was told any topic is ok but I’m going to avoid politics as there is too much of that out there already these days, so here is an idea that has intrigued me for years now. It is sort of tied into climate change as well as the local tourism economy.
Over the last few decades, we have seen our winter business here in Muskoka fall away at both ends. The snow comes later and departs earlier. I remember in the 70s we could usually ski and snowmobile, starting in mid-December and lasting until early April. Now we see the season starting in mid-January and ending pretty promptly around the end of March—a significant reduction.
Our tourism industry roughly follows the weather, with a heavy influence from school schedules. Despite the efforts of groups like Muskoka Tourism, it’s still pretty hard to sell mud, cold weather, and slush in November and April. The Family Day weekend has been a big hit for tourists coming to the Muskoka area and has become probably the most preferred time for winter visitors now, even exceeding Valentine’s Day. Sadly, with the skill only government bureaucracy can muster, they have put “Family Day” and “Valentine’s Day” on the same weekend this year, effectively eliminating one of them.
Here is my thought.
Since a lot of our local businesses depend on tourists, we want to increase tourism to Muskoka. Industry groups such as Muskoka Tourism, chambers of commerce, resorts of Ontario, and even that mysterious provincial government agency RTO12, all struggle to increase tourism. Even the new Municipal Accommodation tax (MAT) is designed to help here.
So, how about we take the five days of March Break and eliminate it completely? Our changing climate causes it to come too late to be much good for winter activities, and too early for spring.
Take those five days and add one to each of the weekends in the last half of January and all of Feb for a total of six weekends. We already have one covered by Family Day, so use the five from March Break to handle the rest.
Doing this, we enable us to have six long weekends plus the romantic Valentine’s Day weekend. People will come from the GTA to Muskoka for a long weekend. For a week, with poor weather here, they go south to see Mickey Mouse. Their out-of-country expenditures are totally lost to Canadian businesses.
These six long weekends would greatly increase business in our area when it is needed and not just for resorts, but for all the ancillary businesses too. The restaurants, gas stations—everything.
To do this would cost nothing. No changes to teachers’ working days or bussing, and such.
Now look at the summer season. It turns on and off with the school year, always has, but the issue for many businesses is twofold. One, it is inconsistent; some years the school holidays are 10 weeks, some 11, so it is hard to plan bookings and such. The second is that we are again failing to take into account climate change. The last week of June and the first week of September are now usually nice, warm weeks quite suitable for a holiday, but they are not well booked because all the kids are in school. I’ll bet that if you added about 12 to 15 minutes to a school day to the regular schedule and put all the PD days in this spring and fall period, you could make the summer a consistent 13 weeks every year. This is a 30% time increase and would probably add about a 25% increase in revenue to all of our service businesses.
This is huge, and, again, the cost is nearly nothing.
These businesses are staffed and ready to run at these times.
The teachers and students would get the same instructional time, same normal holidays.
There would be a utility saving in the schools for these three weeks, and bussing costs should decrease as there would be fewer operating days.
I’ve asked many school students if they would mind an extra 15 minutes a day in school in return for the extra three weeks of holiday and the six long weekends in winter. I have yet to find one who does not like the idea.
I’ve been told that a 13-week holiday is “too long, the kids will forget what they learned,” but I don’t believe our children are that forgetful. Besides, once they graduate, they will have to remember what they learn for a lifetime.
Maybe as a society, we should look at these ideas. The existing schedules should not be set in stone; our climate is changing, and we could expand business for our area by very cheaply taking at least some of these steps. I think it is worth thinking about and discussing with our leaders. I see no real downside to doing this.
Brian Tapley attended school at Port Cunnington, then Irwin Memorial in Dwight, and finally Huntsville High, before graduating from Queen’s University in 1973 with a degree in Mechanical Engineering.
He worked for Kimberly-Clark for a short time before ‘retiring’ to help his aging parents run the family resort, Bondi Village Cottage Resort in Dwight.
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What I appreciate about Brian’s piece isn’t the specifics, but the willingness to question schedules that were designed for a climate and economy that no longer exist.
Muskoka has been absorbing shorter winters and widening shoulder seasons for years, and when weather and school calendars don’t align, small seasonal businesses feel it first.
The points raised by educators matter too — PD days and instructional time aren’t arbitrary, and teachers already carry significant professional and financial responsibilities.
This doesn’t have to be about eliminating March Break or forcing a single solution. It’s about recognizing that our social calendars aren’t fixed in stone, and that climate change may require thoughtful adjustments over time.
At minimum, it feels like a reasonable conversation to be having.
A couple of thoughts: definitely worth looking at alternative ways of potentially shifting dates for various school breaks. Remember, the kids as well as teachers find extended breaks refreshing and invigorating. I’m sure there are multiple studies and models to consider best options. Lots of other countries scatter larger breaks throughout the year differently than Canada does. And indeed, having kids available for summer farm work is no longer a priority. One other point: teachers pay plenty for upgrading courses taken on their own time – nights and summers. Expensive courses at $700 a pop or more. (I know from personal experience) PD days are generally board-wide information sessions on new curriculum, or other relevant education updates, reporting to parents, etc..
This heads us in the right direction. It is clear the school year based on Tourism and Mental Health is more important to us all; based on farming is not as relevant this century. There will be resistance but the current education system is serving nobody and desperately needs an overhaul. I recommend this action as a recently retired public elementary teacher.
Jim, No I don’t think this is important enough to “die on” but it could be adjusted or watered down a bit. I’m not too concerned with teachers PD days, at least they have them, whereas if I or most of my friends want to “professionally develop” we have to pay a lot of money to some approved training agency and take our personal time (what we have of it) to do this. For this reason putting PD days together when it best suits the rest of society does not bother me.
This is not a “plan” as there are admittedly many other factors to consider, such as work schedules in factories which do not “auto adjust” to a school holiday for one. It is just to get some of us thinking about how our changing climate may cause us to need to adjust our social calendars to better fit a changing reality. It does indicate the potential business gains for the tourism sector of our economy, a large part of Muskoka’s income, and how potentially simple it could be to make positive changes. No need to go all the way at once.
A similar argument has been ongoing for years now regarding the need for standard and daylight saving time and that is nowhere near being resolved either.
Brian,
Your idea is certainly worth serious consideration.
My guess is that the gang who bail out asap to get max time in Florida or Myltle Beach at March break won’t be too enthusiastic.
A few minutes a day won’t count for much but eliminaction of an entire week of back to back days off will not be seen as a usefull replacement. Not to mention conveniently placed PD days !
If that got implemented without a province wide teachers strike. I would be surprised.
Good thinking though. But is this really the hill you want to die on?