'I wish my family could be here': New Brunswickers prepare for a household bubble Thanksgiving weekend

MONCTON, N.B. -

It will be far from a traditional Thanksgiving experience for residents of New Brunswick, as the province has asked them to limit their gatherings to a single household bubble due to the rising COVID-19 case numbers in the province.

While many are adapting their plans to deal with the orders, others aren’t happy and may even be finding ways around it.

For specialty cake baker Maggie Drummond, the days leading up to Thanksgiving are often some of her busiest.

“I was honestly dreading this weekend for several weeks before we even got here,” says Drummond from her in-home kitchen in Dieppe, N.B.

But now that the mandatory circuit breaker is in effect across the province over the holiday weekend, her orders are looking a little different.

“We’ve had a lot of people continue to receive their orders as planned, most of which have either divided up some of their stuff to porch drop or hand-deliver to their family or friends,” says Drummond.

Public health says all New Brunswickers, including those who are not covered by the circuit breaker, must not have gatherings anywhere other than a place at which the law requires proof of vaccination with anyone they do not currently live with during the Thanksgiving long weekend, between 6 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 8, and 11:59 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 11.

The newly implemented restriction has faced plenty of criticism and even saw some people finding workarounds to the Friday evening deadline.

“I think they’re forcing law-abiding citizens to break the law. How can you go to a Wildcats game, but can’t go to your grandmother’s house? My father’s 90 years old…you try to tell me I’m not going to bring him down for dinner tomorrow? Of course, I’m going to bring him down for dinner,” says Moncton resident, Quincy Arble.

Arble says his family went ahead with his large family dinner by simply changing the date.

“We planned to have our dinner Thursday night because of this foolishness…that’s why we did it,” says Arble.

Drummond says while only a handful of her clients cancelled their holiday sweets orders, quite a few asked for a new pick-up date to beat the deadline.

“We probably had about 25 orders for Saturday alone, some bumped them forward and picked them up like a Thursday or Friday so that they could kind of get in before the cut-off.”

Groups can still gather at any establishment that requires proof of vaccination, including restaurants, businesses and events.

Angus Gourley says his family moved one of their annual dinners to a restaurant to allow for a larger gathering while still following public health guidelines.

“It’s a little frustrating that I can’t just be the host responsible for checking the double vaccination myself, but I understand also that people really can’t be trusted to do what’s best for the group...they can just be trusted to do what’s best for them,” says Gourley.

Adam Lund is the creator and host of the Wildcast Podcast, an unofficial podcast for the Moncton Wildcats hockey team. He was in the stands for last night’s game at the Avenir Centre in downtown Moncton

Under the current circuit breaker rules, hockey games are allowed to take place so long as everyone in attendance can provide proof of vaccination; a highly criticised aspect of the new mandate. Lund says he’s heard lots of debate over the fact that people can gather at events like hockey games, but not around their own dining room table

“I understand the contentious issue but the fact is they can trace the records, you can’t trace when you have family from New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and everything coming to visit but I definitely understand it, I wish my family could be here from Alberta,” says Lund.

With the new circuit breaker mandate in effect, peace officers have been granted power to have a premises vacated, and can also detain people if they’re found to be in violation of the newly implemented order.