A14 OTHEGLOBEANDMAIL | WEDNESDAY,APRIL8,
LIFE&ARTS TRAVEL | OPINION| PUZZLES | WEATHER
| NEWSF
aced with no ticket revenue
because of the coronavirus
crisis, the Royal Ontario Mu-
seum will lay off half its full-time
staff at the end of the week and is
putting the other half on reduced
hours.
In a statement provided to The
Globe and Mail on Tuesday, ROM
director Josh Basseches said the
museum is just completing nego-
tiations with its unions to man-
age the layoffs and cuts.
“Our intention is to ensure the
burden of these short-term mea-
sures is shared across the mu-
seum,” he said.
“With this in mind, staff
whose work is critical to near-
term, high-priority projects will
continue to work through this
period but on a reduced work
schedule and with a reduction in
pay.
“Employees whose work can
be temporarily deferred will be
placed on temporary declared
emergency leave to access gov-
ernment programs, including the
Canada Emergency Response
Benefit [CERB].”
The reduced work schedule
will offer the employees 80 per
cent of their pay for a four-day
week.
Meanwhile, part-time front-of-
house workers who oversee areas
such as the box office and coat
check are also being laid off.The museum, which employ-
ees about 500 people, is still ne-
gotiating the layoffs with the On-
tario Public Service Employees
Union, which represents 323 full-
time and part-time workers in-
cluding box-office staff, techni-
cians, exhibit designers, techni-
cians, researchers, educators, se-
curity guards and maintenance
staff.
It has completed negotiations
with the ROM Curatorial Associ-
ation and the Service Employees
International Union, which rep-
resents its security guards.
“All the messaging has been:
‘We are all in this together; we are
going to figure it out together,’ ”
said Katherine Dunnell, presi-
dent of OPSEU Local 543 at the
museum and a technician in the
geology and mineralogy
department.
“We are dealing with a highly
involved work force. Having to
close is a blow to everyone.”
She praised the museum for
its graciousness in paying tempo-
rary staff, who had been hired to
cover March break, up to April 10.
The ROM was forced to close
March 14 on the eve of the school
holiday, traditionally one of the
busiest weeks of the year.
The Toronto institution is best
known for its dinosaurs, its bat
cave and a prize selection of Chi-
nese art.
With a collection of 13 million
art objects, artifacts and scientif-
ic specimens, the ROM received
1.3 million visits last year; along-
side the Canadian Museum of
History in Gatineau, it is the most
visited museum in Canada.
The museum is officially
closed to the end of April and has
not said publicly how long it ex-
pects to extend that closing.
“Our goal is to ... reopen the
ROM as soon as it is safe, and to
get people fully back to work
again as soon as possible,”
Basseches said.ROMtolayoff
staff,settostay
closeduntilat
leasttheend
ofthemonth
KATETAYLORStaffwhoseworkis
criticaltonear-term,
high-priorityprojects
willcontinuetowork
throughthisperiodbut
onareducedwork
scheduleandwitha
reductioninpay.
Employeeswhosework
canbetemporarily
deferredwillbeplaced
ontemporarydeclared
emergencyleaveto
accessgovernment
programs.JOSHBASSECHES
ROMDIRECTORW
hen Monika Schweizer and
her daughter booked a three-
week trip to New Zealand and
Australia from their home in
Montreal, COVID-19 was still a month
away from being declared a global pan-
demic by the World Health Organization.
By March 1, they started getting very
concerned about the health implications
of travelling. By mid-March, they had de-
cided their April 10 vacation was off. They
were disappointed but figured it wouldn’t
be too difficult to postpone their trip or
get a refund.
Unfortunately, like thousands of Cana-
dians, they were wrong. Compensation, of
any sort, has been maddening, confusing
and incredibly tough to navigate, let alone
secure.
COVID-19 has caused a cancellation
crunch that few travel operators could
have foreseen or were prepared for. A
surge of calls has made customer service
seemingly impossible to reach. To top it
off, when consumers do get hold of a cus-
tomer representative at an airline, hotel
or third-party travel operator, they are of-
ten given conflicting information about
who is responsible for getting their mon-
ey back.
“It’s been hell,” Schweizer says. “It’s
been a full-time job for the past two
weeks.”
She and her daughter both started
working the phones, first trying to reach
the Toronto-based online travel agency
Flight Network, which booked the holi-
day. They tried for a week, were on hold
for up to nine hours at a time and still
never got through.
“Finally we started calling the airlines
directly. They told us we had to go back to
the third-party,” Schweizer says. “Last
week, after a full day on hold, I finally got
someone at Flight Network who told me
we would get a credit for the trip, good
until Feb. 20, 2021. All I could think was:
Thank god I’m retired and had the time to
devote to this.”
“There is no consistency and it’s mak-
ing tempers flare,” says Frederic Di-
manche, director of the Ted Rogers School
of Hospitality and Tourism Management
at Ryerson University in Toronto. “Cus-
tomers are extremely frustrated, and I feel
their pain. However, COVID-19 has devas-
tated the travel sector. WestJet and Air
Canada have cut between 80 [per cent] to
90 per cent of their flights and all those
calls need to be answered by customer
service. That is a lot of volume. We all
need to reset our expectations of custom-
er service. Have patience and persevere.
There is no easy fix.”
What many Canadians are having diffi-
culty getting their heads around is that
old rules no longer apply. In the past, if a
flight was cancelled, consumers were typ-
ically entitled to a refund. But as of March
25, the Canadian Transportation Agency
declared that consumers could be offered
vouchers or credits, which are good for up
to 24 months at most major Canadian car-
riers.
Some people are satisfied with this pol-
icy shift. Others, not so much. A group of
consumers in British Columbia last week
filed a class-action lawsuit against Air
Canada, WestJet, Swoop, Air Transat and
Sunwing for refusing to refund tickets
purchased after coronavirus severely af-
fected travel.
Brian Sumers, senior aviation business
editor at New York-based travel research
company Skift, empathizes with the
plaintiffs, but he doubts lawsuits or lobby
efforts are going to have much impact on
the credit-not-refund policy in the short
term.
“There are two things that consumersmight as well accept. One, we are going to
be put on hold because call centres are
swamped,” he says. “And two, the wait is
going to be longer than you might expect,
especially if you’ve booked through on-
line travel companies, which are an on-
line service and not set up to deal with
thousands of phone calls.
“I’m not sure anyone will want to hear
this advice right now. But I always book
my flights directly through an airline. It
still takes time to cancel a flight, but it’s
typically a less torturous route.”
Kirk and Cathy Dickson, of Orangeville,
Ont., each invested at least 20 hours try-
ing to get compensation for a weeklong
holiday in St. Lucia through WestJet Vaca-
tions that they are supposed to be enjoy-
ing now. The airline gave them WestJet
dollars, good for a year, for the flight.
However, the Sandals resort that was part
of their package refused to give them a
credit.
The couple went back to WestJet Vaca-
tions, who put pressure on the charter
they used to book the hotel. Last week,
the Dicksons were finally told they had a
credit for the hotel, good for up to one
year.
“We’re okay with that, but if we hadn’t
fought back and hung in, we would have
been out approximately $8,600,” Dickson
says.
The best advice Dimanche says he can
give to consumers is to check out travel
operators’ websites for COVID-19 updates.
“Consumers have to realize that every-
thing during this difficult time is in flux.
Updates are often posted daily and they
cover everything from waivers of cancel-
lation fees to extensions of flight credits.
“If this crisis has shown us anything,
it’s the limitations of online transactions,
especially if you have booked something
complex,” he says. “Perhaps going for-
ward people will be more careful, willing
to pay a little bit more, and book their
travel through old-fashion travel agencies
who have a vested interest in helping you
out in a time of crisis.”Patienceiscrucialwhenseeking
reimbursementforascuttledtrip
COVID-19hascauseda
cancellationcrunchthatfew
traveloperatorscouldhave
foreseenorwerepreparedfor
GAYLEMacDONALD
O
n the internet, the meme-ready
phrase “live, laugh, love” is used
to pass millennial judgment on
things shallow or basic. It con-
jures images of tacky inspirational posters
and moms who live for wine o’clock. But it
can be equally comforting knowing that a
simple, consistent thing can bring joy. I am
confident that fans ofSchitt’s Creekwould
not be offended if I were to posit that the ex-
pression is the most pure of descriptions
for their beloved show. After last night’s se-
ries finale and behind-the-scenes docu-
mentary on CBC, it is safe to say that view-
ers satisfyingly lived, laughed and loved
with their favourite TV family one last time.
A lifetime ago – in the more innocent,
prepandemic days of March, 2019 – co-cre-
ator Daniel Levy announced that his hit
comedy was wrapping up after six seasons.
Although Levy has said he always knew
how the show would conclude, no one
could have predicted the self-isolated
world in which the finale would arrive. Es-
capes from reality have been few. So as mil-
lions of Canadians and Americans remain
homebound and glued to their screens, the
conclusion ofSchitt’s Creekprovided a rare
feel-good, must-see TV moment for a
strange time.
Season six, episode 14, opens on the
morning of the big day. The wedding of Da-
vid (Daniel Levy) and Patrick (Noah Reid)
has arrived, and so have the storm clouds
over their outdoor ceremony. But the once
down-and-out Rose family – David, father
Johnny (father Eugene Levy), mother Moi-
ra (Catherine O’Hara) and sister Alexis
(Annie Murphy) – have learned how to live
to the fullest without their riches, and their
last hurrah will not be rained on, literally. In
good-hearted sitcom fashion, the people of
the titular town help get the nuptials back
on track.
Laughs ensue, of course. David, despair-
ing over the weather, starts off the half-
hour with an endearing string of F-words (a
wonderful, censor-pushing outburst). To
calm David down, Patrick engages the ser-
vices of a masseur, who provides the fi-
nale’s first happy ending, however inadver-
tent (“All I did was leave an envelope full of
cash and a note to take very good care of
you!”). Later, Moira steals the show for a fi-
nal time, pressed last-minute into officiat-
ing the ceremony – although surely no one
had to press her into an outfit best de-
scribed as: the pope, but make it fashion.
Above all is a tear-jerking, snotty, sob-
bing love. With the family’s paths laid clear
in previous episodes – Moira reboots her
soap-opera career, Johnny builds a motel
empire, Alexis chooses independence over
love – the focus is all on saying I do and fare-
well. The wedding begins with a nod to
long-time fans as the townspeople sing
James Morrison’sPrecious Love, a callback
to a favourite party scene from the second
season; it ends with the final cover song of
Schitt’s Creek– a series full of viral musical
moments – as Patrick sets his vows to a solo
rendition of Mariah Carey’sAlways Be My
Baby. Was there a single dry eye tuned into
the CBC last night?
Then, the final happy ending. The family
hugs goodbye outside the motel they’ve
called home. Moira and Johnny leave town
in a black SUV, but not before turning back
for just one last look. “Welcome to Schitt’s
Creek,” the town sign reads, “Where every-
one fits in.”
The 45-minute postfinale documentary
is a victory lap centred on the show’s celeb-
rity in its latter seasons, as it nailed the Net-
flix sweet spot and made famous friends
along the way. At the season four mark, the
trajectory ofSchitt’s Creekseemed all too fa-
miliar: a minor cult hit created by Canadian
comedy royalty, co-produced by the CBC
and destined for a shelf full of Canadian
Screen Awards. Then, in a serendipitous
mix of word of mouth, memes and Netflix,
the show broke through the maple-leaf
ceiling.
Schitt’s Creekdid not need to go to great
pains to fete itself; tastemakers did all the
heavy lifting. Carol Burnett, Cameron
Crowe, Will Arnett and Paula Abdul are
among the celebrities who sing the show’spraises, and gush about binge-watching it
along with the rest of America. Thousands
of those fans show up screaming in footage
of the cast’s speaking tour, packing theat-
res across North America.
If there is one familiar signpost of the
show’s final trajectory, it is the implicit
message that while making it in Canada is
nice – making it in the United States is
worth four 2019 Emmy nominations.
The real-life happy ending ofSchitt’s
Creekis the story of Daniel Levy, who had an
idea to create a comedy with his father and
now is an in-demand creator, with a three-
year deal from ABC Studios.
The documentary lingers happily on the
parts of the show that matter most to him:
the writing and camaraderie, yes, but also
its meticulous costume design and heart-
felt depiction of David and Patrick’s rela-
tionship. Viewers are shown the impact on
LGBTQ culture, from the iconic billboards
of David and Patrick kissing to Levy, teary
throughout the feature, relating how a fan
came out to his family using David’s on-
screen analogy: “I like the wine, not the la-
bel.”
One potential scene remains elusive
from theSchitt’s Creeklove-in. There is
much footage of the cast winning CSAs
over the years and walking U.S. red carpets
in the latter heyday. Perhaps in September,
even if it is through a virtual ceremony, a
scene can be added of Levy and company
hoisting an Emmy for the little Canadian
show that made it.Schitt’sCreekfinaleprovides
aboatloadofhappyendings
CLIFFLEE
Schitt’sCreekcreatorDanielLevy,aboveright,hadanideatocreateacomedywithhis
father,EugeneLevy,secondfromright.Fromthere,theCanadianserieslastedforsix
seasons,rackedupashelffullofCanadianScreenAwardsandbrokethemaple-leafbarrier
togainanaudienceintheUnitedStates.CBC