U.S. company promised cheaper, gas/diesel turbines with $172M in ‘economic uplift’

Posted on January 21, 2026 by brucewark

Councillor Josh Goguen

The company NB Power chose to build a 500 MW gas/diesel generating plant on the Chignecto Isthmus promised to supply  its PE6000 jet engine turbines at a lower cost than its competitors’ turbines while minimizing the time needed for construction by using a modular power-plant concept known as PowerFLX.

“Through standardization, the PowerFLX solution eliminates variability, dramatically decreases costs through economies of scale, and allows for accelerated installation,” the U.S. company WattBridge, a subsidiary of PROENERGY, said in a document it submitted to NB Power on August 8, 2024 in response to the utility’s request for expressions of interest.

“This plant design has been used in more than 65 package installations for WattBridge and other parties since 2021,” the company states, adding that the engineering, procurement and construction phases of the project would contribute more than $172 million in “economic uplift” to local and surrounding areas.

The document was one of several released in response to a right to information request filed in October by Tantramar Councillor Josh Goguen.

He made his request after PROENERGY Canada President John MacIsaac told members of council they should “fact check” his statements that the North Shore Mi’kmaq Tribal Council had invested in the gas plant project.

Documents that NB Power released in early November to Warktimes and that are also included in the latest package sent to Councillor Goguen, do not support MacIsaac’s claim that the Mi’kmaq had agreed to invest in the plant.

The documents do show, however, that Indigenous investment was possible and legal steps were taken to make it happen although the Chiefs of the nine Mi’gmaq First Nations have said since that the project can’t go ahead until it undergoes a rigorous, Mi’gmaq-led, rights impact assessment.

Two plants?

PE6000 aereoderivative gas turbine. Photo: WattBridge

NB Power’s request for expressions of interest says it is seeking proposals for a 400 MW gas/diesel plant “with option to expand at a single plant site,” an apparent reference to an additional 100 MW that the utility has since said it will sell to an unidentified customer to help reduce costs.

WattBridge’s proposal in 2024, however, mentions “two phases of 400 MW each” but the locations of the two plants are blacked out.

During a public meeting last week in Sackville, NB Power VP Brad Coady explained that the utility is planning for a 600 MW plant in the Scoudouc Industrial Park just in case it’s needed in the years ahead.

“I commit to you right now there are no plans for future expansion of the Tantramar site,” he promised. “It’s a 500 MW site.”

To read the batch of heavily-redacted documents from NB Power, click here.

Posted in economic development, NB Power, Town of Tantramar | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

‘Dumb Old Utility Guys’ are pushing 500 MW gas plant ‘boondoggle’ on the Isthmus

Posted on January 19, 2026 by brucewark

Darcie Lanthier of the PEI co-op Energy Democracy Now

Darcie Lanthier, director of the Energy Democracy Now Co-Operative on Prince Edward Island, says her group is organizing a province-wide fight against two PROENERGY diesel-burning turbines that the privately-owned utility Maritime Electric wants installed in Charlottetown.

During a lively meeting in Moncton on Saturday jointly organized by Protect the Chignecto Isthmus Coalition and the New Brunswick chapter of the social and economic justice group ACORN Canada, Lanthier praised those fighting against NB Power’s proposed 500 MW gas plant on the Chignecto Isthmus.

“Kudos to all of you for being here and for this magnificent effort,” she said.

“And the question I keep hearing here is so interesting,” Lanthier said.

“Why are they doing this? Why are they so stubborn, so locked in the past? And the answer is because they’re all DOUGS. They’re Dumb Old Utility Guys, and this is the way they’ve always done it, and this is the way they’re always going to do it.”

Lanthier said the Canadian company NRStor Inc. has made cost-effective proposals for both PEI and New Brunswick to install battery and energy storage systems

“NRStore almost always works with an Indigenous partner to have 50% ownership in the plant. So you look at Indigenous ownership, you look at, you know, the lack of emissions, it’s much more affordable, [it turns on] perhaps within milliseconds, and it works with every future technology,” she said.

“If I had one piece of advice, I would say ‘label this a boondoggle,'” she added.

“New Brunswickers understand that New Brunswick Power drops readily into boondoggles and are happy to throw your money away on mythical thinking and fictional deals in Florida,” Lanthier said to a round of applause.

“This is a boondoggle kind of story.”

Politics of hope

Tantramar MLA Megan Mitton speaking at a public meeting in Moncton

Earlier in the meeting, Tantramar MLA Megan Mitton said she remembered reading a book on economics called It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way.

“That title stuck with me,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be this way. We don’t have to build a gas plant,” she added.

“It can feel really difficult to have hope, but I’m in politics because I do have hope,” she said, adding it’s a hopeful sign that the public intervener, the lawyer hired to represent the public interest, will be arguing against the proposed gas plant during Energy & Utilities Board hearings next month.

“So, there is a possibility that the Energy & Utilities Board will say this is not prudent, this is not a good idea,” she said.

“We need to keep up the pressure on our premier, on government and on NB Power to say ‘We don’t want this,'” she added.

“We need political pressure because we’re lacking political will in Fredericton aside from the Greens. We need our utility to get with the times.”

Cheaper battery storage

Moe Qureshi of the Conservation Council of New Brunswick

“Some experts are saying that we’re using 20th century technology when it’s the 21st century,” said Moe Qureshi, director of climate research at the Conservation Council of New Brunswick.

“Wind and solar and battery technologies are getting cheaper and cheaper every year,” he added, “but oil and gas plants…are getting more expensive.”

He noted that NB Power will be buying gas piped in through the United States at great financial risk.

“Fuel prices are volatile. Who knows what the fuel price is going to be in 2040, right? You can’t even predict it from week to week,” he said.

He referred to the 250 MW Oneida battery storage project in Ontario that cost $700 million, but was supported by federal subsidies and tax credits that came to $100 to $120 million.

Qureshi pointed out that batteries can turn on instantly and because they don’t burn fuel, NB Power could save billions over 25 years.

“We have better and cheaper alternatives available, and the ratepayers deserve better,” he concluded.

Rising power bills

“The gas plant could add 5% to NB Power bills,” said Nichola Taylor, chair of the social justice group NB ACORN, referring to a recent CBC report.

She added that many low-to-moderate income families, the elderly on fixed incomes, single-parent families, renters with no control over the energy efficiency of their homes and First Nations communities already can’t afford to pay their power bills.

Nichola Taylor addressing the meeting as Megan Mitton & Moe Qureshi look on

“New Brunswickers are paying more than they should to heat their homes,” she said. “Two thousand, eight hundred and thirty dollars per year is the average household energy cost in New Brunswick, which is 25% higher than the national average.”

Taylor added that people skip meals and lower their heat to unsafe levels and still fall behind on their bills.

“People who have health conditions, lung, breathing and heart conditions are extremely vulnerable to climate change,” she said, referring to out-of-control wildfires in the Moncton area last summer.

“So, how bad will those fires be if there is a gas plant here?” she asked.

“A gas plant burning fossil fuels, polluting our air, polluting our water, is putting us all at risk,” she said.

“ACORN says no to funding the oil industry while we bear the burden. ACORN says no to ever-increasing bills. ACORN says no to dirty energy. ACORN says no to subsidies for the big businesses while people are starving, freezing in winter and overheating in summer in their own homes. ACORN says no to the pro-Trump, PROENERGY, gas plant.”

Posted in climate change, NB Power, Town of Tantramar | Tagged , | 14 Comments

Public Intervener plans to oppose Centre Village gas plant at EUB hearings

Posted on January 16, 2026 by brucewark

Gas plant image from EUB documents filed by NB Power

The lawyer appointed by the province to represent the public interest at the Energy & Utilities Board is planning to oppose NB Power’s proposed 500 MW gas/diesel plant near Centre Village during EUB hearings next month in Moncton.

“We’ve formed an opinion and we’re not really for this plant,” Alain Chiasson, the public intervener for the energy sector, told John Chilibeck, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter with Brunswick News.

“We believe NB Power hasn’t looked through the alternatives enough,” he added. “For instance, this could have been done with large batteries instead of a gas plant. Our experts are not in agreement with what NB Power is proposing.”

One of those experts, Jeffrey Palermo of PJP Consulting based in Boca Raton, Florida, has filed EUB testimony suggesting that NB Power’s forecasts are wrong and the utility does not need electricity from the gas/diesel plant, known as the RIGS project.

“The most recent Maritimes Area resource adequacy study shows that NB Power has enough resources available without the RIGS generation to meet or exceed its planning requirements through 2030,” he states in a 47-page document available on the EUB website.

“The RIGS project cannot be justified by regional planning criteria and studies,” he adds.

“Delaying NB Power’s planned 111 MW net generating capacity reductions until 2029 will provide more time to develop better alternatives and long-term solutions.”

Palermo says that NB Power has “summarily dismissed” battery energy storage systems (BESS) as an alternative that he says “would be more flexible, provide additional benefits beyond those offered by the RIGS project and could result in lower costs for New Brunswick customers.”

Gas plant in Scoudouc?

Meantime, documents that NB Power has filed with the EUB show that although Centre Village was the utility’s first choice for the gas/diesel plant, it is still considering property it purchased in the Scoudouc Industrial Park as the site for a second, 600 MW facility sometime in the future.

NB Power VP Brad Coady confirmed during a public meeting in Sackville on Wednesday that the utility plans to continue work on the Scoudouc site.

“We are trying to avoid another 600 MW combustion turbine,” he said, but suggested that NB Power needs to plan for it in case it’s needed.

A briefing note for NB Power’s Strategic Executive Oversight Committee (SEOC) dated May 26, 2025, explains why the Centre Village site is a better choice mainly because a gas plant could be built more quickly there, but suggests that communication with local residents would be important.

“There is potential for opposition to development of either site and prudent planning and communications will help mitigate that risk,” the briefing note states.

“Early, proactive, and clear communication and demonstration of intentions to mitigate impacts on local communities and the environment are preferred. This approach is particularly important in the case of the Centre Village site given the differences in how nearby land is currently being used.”

To read the NB Power briefing note, click here.

To read consultant Jeffrey Palermo’s EUB testimony, click here.

—with files from John Chilibeck, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Brunswick News.

Posted in LJI stories, NB Power | Tagged , | 1 Comment

NB Power defends plans for Isthmus gas plant in the face of overwhelming community opposition

Posted on January 15, 2026 by brucewark


About 170 people attended a public gathering on the Mount Allison University campus Wednesday evening as New Brunswick Power fielded questions about the proposed 500 MW gas/diesel generating plant on the ecologically sensitive Chignecto Isthmus.

Doug Bliss, chair of Tantramar council’s Climate Change Advisory Committee which organized the meeting, asked pointedly about the overwhelming public opposition to the project that NB Power refers to as RIGS.

CCAC Chair Doug Bliss

“Given what you know about our home and the opposition of our people to this fossil-fuel- burning gas turbine plant,” Bliss asked, “can you tell us how social licence or public support fits into your decision-making process and whether public support or lack of it can change the course of the RIGS gas turbine project?”

“Of course social licence matters,” NB Power Vice President Brad Coady answered before making it clear that the provincial utility considers Centre Village to be the best site for a project that he said is needed to help integrate intermittent renewable energy sources such as wind and solar while preventing grid blackouts because of electricity shortages.

“I cannot maintain energy security and bring the project to a different location,” Coady added, referring to his earlier comments about the threat of blackouts.

“Bad things happen when we have those blackouts,” he said. “People are very upset and distraught, it’s not a good place to be.”

Global warming

Penny Mott, Seniors for Climate Tantramar

“When it is operating, does a 500 MW gas-powered plant emit harmful local air pollution and generate greenhouse gases contributing to the warming of the planet?” asked Penny Mott, a member of the group Seniors for Climate Tantramar.”

Yes or no?” she added.

“I think the answer is no on the harmful side,” Coady answered, adding that although carbon dioxide emissions are warming the planet, the gas itself isn’t a poison.

Coady also explained that the natural-gas-burning plant would reduce NB Power’s reliance on heavy-oil-burning facilities such as Coleson Cove while helping the utility reach its goal of “net zero” carbon emissions by 2035.

NB Power VP Brad Coady

“Methane is terrible for the climate,” Tantramar MLA Megan Mitton told Coady. “The data is showing that batteries with solar or wind cost less than doing this,” she said.

“So why not choose the less costly option that doesn’t burn fracked gas and pollute our air and make us sick and increase the risk of Alzheimer’s and asthma and miscarriages, among many other things?” Mitton asked.

“I accept that the [battery] prices have come down,” Coady answered. “That’s why we issued another solicitation before Christmas to say let’s go back and sound the market,” he added, but he continued to argue that batteries would be “a more expensive solution than we’re proposing with the RIGS project.”

AI data centres

“I’m a Sackville resident from a family that carries a fatal genetic lung disease, pulmonary fibrosis, which is triggered by poor air quality,” said Shary Boyle.

She added that the Trump administration has merged with Big Tech to push ecologically destructive AI data centres powered by gas turbines.

Sackville resident Shary
Boyle

“Recent reporting by CBC shows that a proposed data centre in Lorneville, Saint John could require almost half the electricity the Tantramar plant is meant to supply,” Boyle said.

“This is not a surge for people, this is a surge for AI.”

Her reference to AI came up again later with two other questions that were submitted in writing.

“Is this new energy facility to generate power to be used for AI and how much base load planned is due to new data centres coming online?”

Coady responded that none of the power from the gas plant would be going to data centres.

“There was a project proposed in southern New Brunswick,” he said referring to the Lorneville project.

“I can tell you now, if that project doesn’t have its own generation or some other way to keep its operation going, there’s no way NB Power can serve it with the amount of infrastructure that we have today, inclusive of the RIGS project. So it’s not a part of our plan,” Coady said.

‘Two kinds of people’

Jean Nye, an Elder from Fort Folly First Nation said she had a question for everyone in the room.

“In this world, there are two kinds of people,” she said.

“There are people who live on the land, and there are people who are of the land. The people who live on the land see the land as a resource, something that they can harvest, something that they can use.

Jean Nye, Fort Folly Elder

“People who are of the land see ourselves as connected to everything, rocks, trees, fish, birds, all the animals, all the plants.

“I want to know, what are you? Are you of the land or are you on the land?” she asked.

“It’s a tough question to answer,” Coady replied, adding that he and his family spend a lot of time in the New Brunswick wilderness.

“And yet I work for an energy utility and it does create tension,” he said.

“I have two young kids, two young daughters, and I’m trying to say how do we make this place better for them when we pass it on, but yet I’m here in front of you talking about a gas turbine project,” Coady added.

” I lived through a blackout event,” he said in an apparent reference to the 2013 blackout in Newfoundland and Labrador.

“Three people died in that event because they were trying to protect their families and coming up with alternative heating sources for their homes. We had a lineman killed in that event as well, as they were trying to restore power. That’s the other side of the reality of this,” he said.

 “So if you ask me what kind of a person I am, I guess I’m on the fence, aren’t I? I’m on both sides of that coin and that’s not a fair answer to you. I’m going to ponder that one probably the rest of the night figuring out what truly am I in my soul,” Coady concluded.

For Erica Butler’s CBC coverage of the meeting, click here.

Posted in climate change, Environment, Indigenous affairs, NB Power | Tagged , | 8 Comments

Citizens gather to support Sackville firefighters as town pledges to hire external investigator

Posted on January 13, 2026 by brucewark

About 75 people showed up outside Tantramar Town Hall tonight to support the 12 Sackville firefighters who turned in their pagers last week bringing the number of on-call firefighters to only about 18, in a department where full strength would be 43.

During a two-minute presentation, Sackville resident Breanne Wheaton warned town council that understaffing in Sackville Fire and Rescue puts public safety at risk as she referred to a National Fire Protection Association standard.

“It expects a rural community like Sackville to be able to put six trained firefighters on scene within 14 minutes, 80% of the time,” she said.

“With less than 18 firefighters remaining in our department, that standard is not realistically achievable,” she added.

Breanne Wheaton addressing Tantramar council

Wheaton referred to a news release the town issued late this afternoon promising the immediate hiring of an External Workplace Investigator “to address complaints and concerns received from firefighters.”

“What makes council think doing another investigation will bring about any change?” she asked after noting that the $31,500 Montana consultants’ report commissioned in 2021 had not resolved problems that had led to the resignations of more than 30 Sackville firefighters over a 10-year period.

Mayor Andrew Black replied that the Montana consultants had conducted a workplace assessment which he described as “someone coming in and getting a feel for an operation or organization” and then recommending changes in standard operating guidelines and procedures that would not fix underlying issues.

“I want to make it very clear that there’s a difference between what a workplace assessment is and what an investigation is,” he said.

Mayor Andrew Black

“Investigation is something altogether different.” he added. “It is an acknowledgement that there are clear indications of violation and those need to be investigated and at the end of that there would be a concrete and firm course of action.”

The town’s news release also promised to recruit a Director of Protective Services to oversee Tantramar’s three fire departments.

In the meantime, council has approved a new position called Tantramar Fire Service Manager of People and Culture to handle fire department issues.

Acting Clerk Becky Goodwin, who served for nine years as a volunteer in Sackville Fire and Rescue, has been reassigned to the new post. Her late father, Wayne Goodwin, also served as fire chief for many years.

When Councillor Michael Tower asked if these new measures gave her confidence that the town might be moving in the right direction, Wheaton replied that what stopped her from having full confidence was the length of the turmoil within the fire department.

“We’re talking 10 to 12 years that these issues have been going on and so I’m hoping that this council is going to be the council that that puts an end to that and gives a better work environment for these volunteers that give a lot of their time to our community,” she said.

To read the town’s news release, click here.

To read the full text of Breanne Wheaton’s statement to town council, click here.

To read Mayor Black’s explanation of the differences between the Montana workplace assessment conducted in 2021 and the promised external workplace investigation, click here.

Posted in Sackville Fire & Rescue, Town of Tantramar | Tagged , | 5 Comments

Sackville firefighters accept CAO’s invitation for meeting to discuss grievances

Posted on January 9, 2026 by brucewark

Firefighters use aerial ladder truck to fight fire at Salem Elementary School in 2018

The 12 volunteer firefighters, who turned in their pagers on Monday, say they have accepted an invitation to meet with Tantramar’s Chief Administrative Officer Jennifer Borne to discuss why they felt they had to step away from their workplace at the Sackville fire department.

“The firefighters…are hopeful that sharing their experiences in this setting will finally lead to meaningful action within the Sackville Fire Department,” they say in a statement e-mailed to Warktimes last night.

“The twelve firefighters wish to be clear: this was not a resignation. Stepping away is intended to underscore the seriousness of the situation and the need for prompt, effective intervention by the employer,” their statement adds.

They acknowledge that the town has a strong policy on workplace harassment, but their statement adds: “the municipality has not made adequate and meaningful action to address the underlying problems within the department to mitigate favoritism, and to provide a safe and a harassment free environment.”

Their statement also refers to “important changes” in the bylaw governing the fire department in response to recommendations made by the Montana Consulting Group that the town hired in 2021 after Warktimes published reports about 17 firefighters who had resigned over a five-year span.

Their resignation letters outlined complaints about persistent harassment, bullying, favouritism and blatant discrimination against women in the department.

Montana recommendations

Sackville Fire Chief Craig Bowser

Under the new fire department bylaw, firefighters became part-time employees with better wage rates, but the bylaw also gave more power to the fire chief and the CAO:

—the old fire department constitution and internal bylaws, which gave firefighters the right to elect their own officers as well as a say in the hiring of new members, was eliminated.

—the grievance committee, which had never been set up, was replaced with a complaint procedure requiring volunteer firefighters to discuss their complaints with the chief and then, with the CAO.

Although the Montana report has never been made public, it’s understood that the consultants made several recommendations including:

—clarify the town’s expectations regarding the role and duties of the fire chief

—provide proper training for each firefighter and for each supervisor

—the chief should conduct firefighter performance reviews on a timely basis as determined in consultation with the CAO

—the CAO should get feedback from the firefighters at least every three years regarding the performance of the chief.

As part-time employees, firefighters are subject to the town’s social media policy which bans any commentary that would reflect badly on how the town is run and firefighters must refer any media requests for information or comment to the fire chief.

When the firefighters turned in their pagers on Monday, they presented the CAO with a two-page letter outlining their grievances.

Warktimes did not receive a copy.

To read the firefighters’ statement, click here.

Note: As the fire department’s only full-time employee, the fire chief receives a base salary of between $75,707 and $100,942.

Posted in Sackville Fire & Rescue, Town of Tantramar | Tagged | 2 Comments

Tantramar mayor & CAO will not comment on Sackville fire dept. staffing crisis

Posted on January 8, 2026 by brucewark

The Town of Tantramar is suggesting public safety has not been affected by the lack of firefighting staff in the Sackville fire department.

“Tantramar Fire Service is committed to upholding the high-quality service delivery that it has offered Tantramar residents since the incorporation of the municipality in 2023,” the town says in a media release issued this afternoon.

“This means when our residents require service, members will respond,” the release adds, noting that the town has two additional fire halls — a reference to the ones in Point de Bute and Dorchester — as well as mutual aid partners in nearby towns and cities.

The media release was issued after 12 more volunteer firefighters turned in their pagers on Monday bringing the active-duty roster down to 18, less than half of the full-strength complement of 43.

The release says Tantramar’s Chief Administrative Officer Jennifer Borne “has reached out to the 12 members and the remaining 18 Sackville Fire & Rescue members regarding the recent development.”

When Warktimes asked Communications Officer Jeremy McLaughlin whether either the CAO or Mayor Andrew Black would be available for an interview, he responded that “outside of the media release, there is no additional information at this time.”

Tantramar Town Council held a two-hour closed-door session yesterday to discuss the situation.

After the meeting ended, Mayor Black refused comment saying Warktimes should wait for today’s media release.

To read it, click here.

Posted in Sackville Fire & Rescue, Town of Tantramar | 9 Comments

Mt. A. prof calls on Tantramar councillors to take more active role in solving fire dept. crisis

Posted on January 6, 2026 by brucewark

Mt. A. Politics Professor Geoff Martin

Mount Allison University Politics Professor Geoff Martin says it’s time for Tantramar councillors to get more involved in dealing with the problems in the Sackville fire department.

“I mean, it’s not just the mayor and the CAO who administer the town, council is also elected for a reason,” Martin said today in a telephone interview, one day after 12 highly trained and experienced firefighters turned in their pagers at town hall taking themselves off the active-duty roster.

“It’s one thing to say, ‘Oh well, the management of the fire department is really under the jurisdiction of the CAO,'” Martin adds, “but at some point, the CAO and the mayor only get so many chances to right the ship and a larger group, such as the council, needs to become involved.”

Martin, who served on Sackville Town Council himself from 1998 to 2004, says councillors could pass a motion at their next meeting directing that the top-secret, workplace assessment of the fire department be distributed to them with any other relevant documents so they could see for themselves the problems that were identified and the solutions that were recommended.

He was referring to a report from Montana Consulting Group that the town of Sackville commissioned in 2021 after Warktimes revealed that persistent bullying, harassment and favouritism had led to the resignations of 17 volunteer firefighters over a five-year span.

Councillors were given a closed-door briefing on the Montana report and its 20 recommendations, but were not allowed to read it.

‘Confidential’ report

In 2023, when Councillor Bruce Phinney moved a motion calling for release of the $31,500 report to council and the public, only Councillor Debbie Wiggins-Colwell supported him.

Phinney said at the time he had been hearing from volunteer firefighters about a “toxic environment” within the department, adding that members of council had a duty to “protect the people who are there.”

“We don’t know that there’s a toxic work environment,” Mayor Andrew Black interjected. He reminded both Phinney and Wiggins-Colwell that no one on council had read the Montana report.

“Making the assumption that there are problems without knowing what the report is, you could easily make the assumption that there are no problems,” he said.

“So, since we don’t know the report, we don’t know if there are problems,” Black added.

In rejecting Phinney’s motion, Councillors Allison Butcher and Michael Tower argued that the Montana report should remain confidential to protect the privacy of those who had been interviewed by the consultants.

Phinney responded that confidentiality could be maintained by eliminating or blacking out any names in the report.

Public safety

“Council has played a rather passive role in dealing with the problems in the fire department,” Professor Martin said in today’s interview.

He added that since councillors frequently receive confidential information, they should be able to read the Montana report.

“I don’t see that keeping it from the council is in any way legitimate,” he says.

“I think my concern at this point is a public safety concern,” he adds, referring to the fact that the fire department now has only about 18 volunteer firefighters, less than half of the full complement of 43.

“It’s troubling for citizens of the town to think that the department may now be impaired in responding to emergencies, which is to say you’ve got a limited number of personnel and you’ve got a lot of vehicles and not very large crews for the number of vehicles that we have,” he says.

“And I do think that the citizens will be very interested at the next municipal election to know from councillors who are looking for their votes what they’ve done since early January of 2026 and perhaps earlier, to straighten things out,” Martin concludes.

Posted in Mount Allison University, Sackville Fire & Rescue, Town of Sackville, Town of Tantramar | Tagged | 7 Comments

12 Sackville firefighters turn in their pagers as turmoil continues in the department

Posted on January 5, 2026 by brucewark

A dozen members of Sackville Fire & Rescue turned in their pagers today at town hall and delivered a two-page letter outlining their grievances to Chief Administrative Officer Jennifer Borne.

This brings the roster of Sackville volunteer firefighters to about 18 in a department where the normal complement is 43.

After Borne entered the council chamber where the firefighters had placed their pagers on a table, she asked Warktimes to leave on the grounds that this was a confidential, human resources (HR) matter.

But several firefighters indicated they were simply dropping off their pagers and submitting a letter and were not seeking a meeting with her at this point.

They did not provide a copy of their letter to Warktimes.

Dedicated firefighters

Firefighters wait to see CAO Jennifer Borne after their 9 a.m. arrival at town hall

The firefighters who turned in their pagers have a combined total of more than 180 years of service:

  1. Capt. Don Fillmore — 40 years service
  2. Shawn Phinney — 24 years service
  3. Capt. Travis Estabrooks — 17 years service
  4. Lieut. Darrin Estabrooks — 17 years service
  5. Stevy Fillmore — 17 years service
  6. Travis Thurston — 16 years service
  7. Capt. Adam Stiles — 15 years service
  8. Joshua Estabrooks — 15 years service
  9. Laura Thurston — 9 years service
  10. Jill Hunt — 7 years service
  11. Jacob Estabrooks — 3 years service
  12. Jesse Estabrooks — 2 years service

Years of turmoil

Persistent troubles within Sackville Fire & Rescue first came to public attention in April 2021 when Warktimes published a story about the resignations of 17 firefighters over a five-year period.

At the time, firefighters were complaining about bullying, harassment and favouritism that had led to low morale within the department.

After Warktimes published a second story with more current and former firefighters airing their complaints, the town of Sackville hired a consulting firm to conduct a workplace assessment that has never been released to the public.

A year after posting the first stories about turmoil within the department, Warktimes reported the fire service was still in crisis “with not enough volunteers responding to emergency calls leaving fire trucks sometimes understaffed, slowing response times and potentially putting public safety and the safety of firefighters themselves at risk.”

New Brunswick’s Ombud sided with the town in 2022 after Warktimes sought release of the consultant’s report and a judge in the Court of King’s Bench also ruled it should remain a confidential personnel matter after Councillor Bruce Phinney supported by Warktimes sought its release in 2024. (At the time, Phinney submitted a sworn affidavit stating that nothing had changed within the department.)

In May 2024, Warktimes reported: “Nearly three years after consultants submitted a $31,500 report with 20 recommendations on how to end the turmoil in the Sackville Fire Department, multiple sources tell Warktimes that morale still remains low among volunteer firefighters.”

Last November, Fire Chief Craig Bowser told town council his understaffed department was facing record call volumes and that firefighters were “tiring.”

Warktimes has asked the town for comment, but has not yet heard back.

According to the town’s website, a closed-door council meeting has been called for 4 p.m. on Wednesday to deal with a human resources matter.

Posted in Sackville Fire & Rescue, Town of Sackville | Tagged , | 15 Comments

NB Power lacks ‘social licence’ for Centre Village gas plant activists say

Posted on January 3, 2026 by brucewark

Meredith Fisher from the local chapter of Seniors for Climate Action Now (SCAN) at the Farmers Market on Saturday [click photo to enlarge]

Meredith Fisher of Seniors for Climate Action Now (SCAN) says New Brunswick Power does not have the social licence needed to operate a big gas/diesel generating plant in the community of Tantramar.

“This is a democratic country and we have the right to say what we want and don’t want,” Fisher says. “That is our social licence.”

She adds that NB Power should understand that.

“Get this idea right out of your head and move on to something that’s more relevant and advantageous for all New Brunswickers,” is her message to the provincial utility.

Fisher and fellow SCAN member Logan Atkinson have been staffing a booth at the Sackville Farmers Market nearly every week since last summer when NB Power first announced its plans for a 500 MW gas plant on the Chignecto Isthmus.

“Any socially responsible corporation would look for community engagement and  support,” Atkinson says, adding that NB Power should not be pushing ahead without that social licence.

“I don’t think they have that here,” he says, noting that for every 20 visitors to the SCAN booth, 18 or 19 express opposition to the gas plant.

“What we’re trying to do is educate people who visit the market for their shopping, get them on our mailing list and keep them up to date on what’s developing and the resistance to the gas plant. That’s our principal purpose,” he says.

Better alternatives

Both Fisher and Atkinson argue it makes no sense to claim that a dirty, fossil-fuel-burning gas/diesel plant is the best back-up for clean, renewable energy such as wind and solar when utility-scale batteries are available.

According to the Moncton Times & Transcript, Premier Holt told reporters last month that batteries could cost up to $10 billion, but Atkinson says that’s not even close to being true.

“The gas plant estimate is about a billion dollars and we think that battery technology, which would be perfectly clean and would last much longer, could be done for not much more than a billion. Other jurisdictions are doing this successfully, so that’s what we think the right route is,” he says.

When asked why he thinks NB Power doesn’t seem to know this, Atkinson says officials there must know.

“I think they’ve made bad decisions over the years in failing to invest in renewables, and they’re caught now,” he says.

“So, they think this is a quick fix to a problem they’ve created over the last 20 years or so.”

He accuses NB Power of trying to instill panic and fear by warning about electricity shortages and blackouts based on population growth in southeastern New Brunswick, when the population is actually declining.

Data centres

“The other thing is, and we only have suspicion, no proof, is that much of the power that will be generated will be siphoned off to support a new industry in New Brunswick that we’re not really comfortable with, things like data centres, for example, that are big consumers of electricity,” he says.

Both Fisher and Atkinson are hoping NB Power officials will get a strong message on January 14th about the lack of social licence for a gas plant in Tantramar when they participate in a public meeting at the Crabtree Auditorium on the Mount Allison University campus.

“We’re saying this loud and clear, this is not the direction to go, no way,” Fisher says.

Posted in Environment, NB Power, Town of Tantramar | Tagged , , | 11 Comments

Unprecedented: Big industry takes a pass trying to lower NB Power rate

Posted on December 30, 2025 by brucewark

With prices set to jump, J.D. Irving Limited, Twin Rivers Paper and other firms that use lots of electricity don’t plan to put up a fight this time

by John Chilibeck, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter. Source: Telegraph-Journal.
December 29, 2025

J.D. Irving Pulp and Paper Mill in Saint John. Photo: Alex Vye, Wikipedia

J.D. Irving Limited, the large private firm that uses a huge amount of electricity to power its mills and other business operations, is not registered as an intervenor to try to stymie the public utility’s latest request for a big rate increase.

In fact, none of NB Power’s large industrial customers have applied to be intervenors before the regulator, the New Brunswick Energy and Utilities Board (EUB), which will decide if the price should go up.

Not Twin Rivers Paper, not Irving Oil, none of them.

“It’s the first time I’ve seen this, and I’ve been with the organization for 20 years,” David Young, the executive director of regulatory affairs with the EUB, told Brunswick News.

NB Power is applying for a rate increase of 4.5 per cent for all its 400,000 customers – residential and business – to take effect April 1.

It has to apply to the EUB because the law says so. As a monopoly provider of electricity in the province, NB Power must prove to the regulator it isn’t charging households and businesses too much.

The latest demand is on top of approved rate hikes of 23 per cent over the last three years.

JDI layoffs

JDI has argued those increases were extraordinary and made businesses far less competitive on the world market.

In February, in response to the big jump in the price for electricity, the family company laid off 140 workers at its plant in East Saint John, nearly half its workforce that made paper products.

The plant on Bayside Drive used to consume the most electricity of any factory in New Brunswick. As recently as 2021, the company said it was spending more than $70 million a year on electricity across all of its operations.

And yet, it is not intervening at the EUB hearings in March.

“At this point our position on rates is well established in the public record, and given the frequency of hearings, we didn’t see the need to formally intervene this round,” Anne McInerney, a JDI spokeswoman, told Brunswick News.

U.S. tariffs

Twin Rivers Paper which runs a pulp mill in Edmundston, has consistently appeared at rate hearings and argued the increases NB Power sought were excessive.

It did not respond to a request for comment.

However, Forest NB, the industry association that represents many of the big electrical consumers in the province, including Twin Rivers, AV Group, and Groupe Savoie, said the rates were the least of the industry’s concerns right now.

Kim Allen, executive director Forest NB. Photo: Forest NB

“Nobody likes to see higher power rates, but the reality is New Brunswick has the fourth lowest rates in Canada and although it is challenging for residents and definitely challenging for industry, because our nearest competitor, Quebec, has lower rates than we do,” said Kim Allen, the industry association’s executive director, in an interview.

“Electricity is expensive. And we are in a situation in New Brunswick with aging infrastructure that needs attention.”

Allen said NB Power’s rate increases were catching up with inflation over the last 10 years.

“The question should be how did NB Power get into this difficult position in the first place?”

Allen said her industry had much bigger concerns – namely the punishing tariffs the United States have imposed on wood products imported from New Brunswick.

More than 80 per cent of the industry’s products cross the border, in a sector that employs 24,000 New Brunswickers, many in small towns where it is the biggest economic player, paying $1.4 billion in annual employment income.

Four intervenors

Despite that economic importance, there are only four registered intervenors for the EUB hearings that will take place at the Fredericton Convention Centre from March 9 to 20.

They include the public intervenor (an appointee of the provincial government), the municipal group (representing the three municipal utilities that buy power in bulk from NB Power), the Human Development Council (a nonprofit anti-poverty organization in Saint John) and the New Brunswick Coalition of Persons with Disabilities (a grassroots organization fighting for people with medical needs, such as electric beds).

In the past, JDI hired a top Toronto law firm and other lawyers from New Brunswick to argue its position before the board. For hours, lawyers retained by JDI would pick apart the evidence provided by NB Power and interrogate its top executives, probing for shortcomings.

They would also deliver final arguments to the board, testimony that would frequently convince the quasi-judicial panel not to give NB Power exactly what it had wanted, even if it were to just shave its rate request by less than a percentage point.

Better way to save?

The lack of interest in the latest round of hearings raises questions as to whether big industry has come up with a better way to save on electrical costs.

Top JDI executives have publicly mused that with the stroke of a pen, the provincial government could end the big battle over power rates by reforming the Electricity Act.

In September, two of the firm’s vice presidents, Mark Mosher and Andy Carson, told an all-party legislative committee they wanted the Liberal government to give industry the right to produce its own power, at its own cost, and use NB Power’s transmission lines, without paying exorbitant rates.

This would be like the changes Nova Scotia has made. New Brunswick’s neighbour recently announced a “green choice program” open to 11 large-scale electricity customers that will benefit from new wind projects at a cut rate.

As part of the deal, the customers – including Walmart, Michelin, and most of Nova Scotia’s hospitals – must pay to use transmission lines.

Builders of four of the six wind projects recently bailed on the program, citing cost uncertainty and other problems.

The Nova Scotia government insists it will go ahead with a new round of requests for proposals. The wind energy is supposed to be ready by 2028.

Open letter to Holt

Industry supporters say the same kind of reform should happen in New Brunswick.

Unifor, the big trade union that represents the laid off workers at JDI, wrote an open letter to Premier Susan Holt on Dec. 17 asking her government to follow Nova Scotia’s example.

The union has 8,000 members in New Brunswick who work in a variety of industries, including AV Group and Twin Rivers Paper.

Jennifer Murray, Unifor Atlantic Regional Director. Photo: Unifor

“We’re in a crisis here in New Brunswick,” said Jennifer Murray, Unifor’s Atlantic regional director. “We need big bold solutions right now to continue the sustainability of these industries and our members’ jobs.”

Murray said Unifor’s 200 members who work at Port Hawkesbury Paper in Nova Scotia would soon benefit from the stable price of wind energy.

JDI, meanwhile, is getting ready to build a big windfarm on land it owns at Brighton Mountain near Juniper, more than 200 kilometres northwest of its headquarters in Saint John.

It plans to put up 38 turbines that can create 200 megawatts of energy, about one-third the output of the province’s only nuclear plant at Point Lepreau.

So far, the timber has been cleared, and roads have been put in. Neighbours from the sparsely populated area recently stopped the company from blasting rock out of the way, but the firm insists it will complete the entire job by 2027.

JDI plans on adding several more of the tall, spinning devices, creating another 150 megawatts of electricity, at a future date.

Power purchase agreement

On Dec. 19, NB Power announced a power purchase agreement with JDI to buy its wind energy. Very few details of the private deal were released, but the public utility said there was nothing in the 30-year deal to do with the firm supplying its own wind energy to its mills.

However, Energy Minister René Legacy confirmed to Brunswick News that JDI had asked the province to copy Nova Scotia’s reforms.

“They want us to look at it,” Legacy said. “Large industrial users can produce their own electricity and use the transmission grid. It helps make electricity more affordable to industry, but we have to study the admin fee on the transmission part so that it’s revenue neutral for other ratepayers.”

Legacy clarified that by “we,” he meant NB Power, which is still in talks with the firm.

McInerney, JDI’s spokeswoman, told Brunswick News she had nothing to add, and that “if and when announcements are made, they will be made.”

Energy Minister René Legacy. Photo: Stephen MacGillivray for the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick

The energy minister cautioned nothing would change until his Liberal government hears back from the three experts it appointed earlier this year to review the way NB Power is run.

Those three experts, who are mandated to report back to the government with recommendations by March 31, recently spoke privately to large industrial firms such as JDI.

“There is a bucket in the comprehensive review on competitiveness for industry,” the minister said. “I just want to make sure we don’t create something in the Electricity Act that contravenes what the review committee feels is the best way to go. So, I’d rather see the whole picture before changing legislation.”

Legacy, a businessman before he went into politics, stressed that he wanted industry to be more competitive.

“It’s not just forestry. As a province, we want to be welcoming to industry so that they want to come to New Brunswick and create jobs. Energy costs are part of that equation, so we want to make sure we’re competitive.”

Unifor officials also met privately with the review committee in early December to push the same message.

“We have to look away from piecemealing any type of solution,” Murray said she had told the expert panel. “We have to come up with a solution that’s sustainable for jobs.”

This story from Brunswick News was written by Local Journalism Initiative Reporter John Chilibeck.

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