The first Canadians to disembark from the first sailing of the Coho Ferry at noon on Thursday Feb. 20 will be met with a festive welcome from the Port Angeles Waterfront District.
Executive director for the district Sam Grello said community is relatively small at roughly 20,000 people. He said his community is keenly aware of its relationship with Victoria, noting local efforts to build up the economy with the help of tourism.
“We’re only 22 miles away from you guys. Ottawa and D.C. are thousands of miles away,” he said, adding that his community is relatively small at roughly 20,000, and heavily relies on tourist traffic from the Coho Ferry.
He said his community likes to celebrate the Coho returning to business as usually after annual dry-dock maintenance when it is closed for roughly two weeks.
With the tense trade situation in recent weeks, Grello said this time the celebration will be even bigger: roughly 50 people are signed up to join in on the welcome back party. Locals plan to wear red and white shirts, drink Canadian beer and celebrate the return of neighbours from B.C. They will also have an “ask an American booth,” for anyone who’s curious about matters south of the border.
“We consider our positive relationship with you guys to be non-partisan,” he said, describing elements of the national conversation about tariffs and the 51st state as nonsensical and distressing.
“We are but a small rural community. We have less money than the average community in the Puget Sound, so we understand we do not have a lot of political power, but we do have agency and we can kind of make our sentiment known.”
Grello was on CFAX 1070 with Ryan Price this morning (Feb 6):