Business View Civil and Municipal | Volume 2, Issue 10

79 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 2, ISSUE 10 was nowhere else I’d rather settle down than right here. So, now I’m back where I spent all my summers as a child and, you know what? It’s changed, but it’s still got that small town feel and there’s something to do all year round, whether it’s enjoying the fall colors and the trout and salmon fishing, skiing in the winter, or the bay in the summer. There are not many places in the world where you can enjoy as much as you can here.” The Town of The Blue Mountains is located in Grey County on the shores of Georgian Bay in Southwestern Ontario, where the Beaver River meets Nottawasaga Bay. The municipality was formed in 2001 when the Town of Thornbury was amalgamated with the Township of Collingwood, not to be confused with the nearby Town of Collingwood. The population of The Blue Mountains was a little over 7,000 people in 2016, and it continued to grow steadily until the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020, which is when the population boomed as people made their seasonal homes their primary residences. THE TOWN OF THE BLUE MOUNTA INS , ONTAR IO Soever believes there may be upwards of 10,000 people living in the community today. The municipality’s largest town centers are Thornbury and Clarksburg with about 3,000 permanent residents in each. From an education perspective, there is an excellent elementary school and students attend high school in nearby Meaford. Before the pandemic, The Blue Mountains welcomed over 2.5 million visitors annually, with many people enjoying their cottages, seasonal condos, and summer homes. But many of those have become permanent dwellings now that many living in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) are working remotely, and are no longer shackled to their offices. Soever believes a fundamental shift in the way people live is on the horizon, noting, “Before the pandemic people were commuting into downtown Toronto from the outer parts of the GTA. They were driving an hour, an hour and a half to commute one way That works out to 10 to 15 hours a week. All of a sudden during COVID Courtesy of Blue Mountain Resort