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Yet there’s one exception, and not even a deliberate one: marinas, boat launches and water-access-only properties.

Photo by Peter J Thompson/National Post

The issue is complicated, because circumstances vary widely. Marinas weren’t deemed essential services, at least not outright — some of their business operations are non-essential. Servicing boats for the start of the season (the ice hasn’t even melted everywhere yet) isn’t permitted, if the boat is a recreational craft, or if the operator will use it to reach a water-access-only secondary residence. But marinas are permitted to service and launch boats that provide the operator access to a water-access-only primary residence. Marinas can also service emergency service fleets and provide logistical support to remote communities that must get supplies by water. But the marina owners are being asked to make judgment calls on their own initiative as to what part of their normal business operations the government would consider essential and which are not.

Publicly owned boat launches are another challenge. Again, they can be used, legally, in support of specific activities, including accessing primary residences that are only reachable by water, or sending provisions to remote communities. But you’re not supposed to use them to launch your boat or take a cruise to your cottage, if you have a different primary residence.

Responsibly and consistently enforcing enforcing all of this, as you can imagine, is impossible. It is being left up to individual marina operators to decide what services they offer, and while some of them may be deliberately flouting emergency regulations and provincial requests, others probably simply don’t know what they should be doing. Enforcement of activity around boat launches will be similarly scattershot. How is a police officer or municipal official to know which boats are being launched to return people to their primary residences and which are being used to take people to their cottages?