Gas plant critics accuse NB Power, PROENERGY of ‘bait and switch’ over Indigenous partnership

Posted on July 18, 2026 by brucewark

Barry Rothfuss, AWI executive director

Local opponents of the proposed 500 MW gas plant near Centre Village are accusing NB Power and its American partner PROENERGY of practising “bait and switch” tactics in attempting to get public support for their joint project.

“For months, PROENERGY and NB Power used the promise of First Nations’ partnership to quiet intense community, health care and environmental opposition,” Barry Rothfuss, executive director of the Atlantic Wildlife Institute says in a news release.

“Now that they have pushed through their initial approvals, they have uncoupled the project from Indigenous equity, proving that the original reconciliation narrative was just a public relations tactic used for commercial advantage,” he adds.

Rothfuss was reacting to NB Power Vice President Brad Coady’s comment this week that the gas/diesel plant could go ahead without an Indigenous financial or equity partnership.

Coady told reporters in Sackville on Tuesday that although Indigenous participation would be “a highly desired outcome,” it is not essential for the project to gain regulatory approvals from the Energy & Utilities Board or under the provincial environmental impact assessment.

‘Greenwashing’

Coady’s comments have led Rothfuss and five other opponents of the gas plant to update their previous complaint to the federal Competition Bureau to include what they claim is a “false narrative” about Indigenous reconciliation that is “direct evidence of corporate deception and federal greenwashing.”

The original complaint accused PROENERGY of making misleading statements about the health effects of the gas plant on the local community and NB Power of making misleading statements about the financial risks to provincial ratepayers.

Their complaint also accused NB Power and its American partner of the deceptive practice of “greenwashing” by using the acronym “RIGS” that stands for “Renewables Integration and Grid Security” to create the false impression that the project’s primary purpose is to support green energy.

Recent changes to the Competition Act prohibit companies from using greenwashing to promote their business interests in ways that would make them appear to be more environmentally friendly or less environmentally damaging than they really are.

NB Power VP Brad Coady speaking to Tantramar Town Council

In a telephone interview Friday, Rothfuss also pointed to Coady’s statements during his presentation to Tantramar Town Council acknowledging that the gas plant would produce higher levels of greenhouse gas emissions in the region when it is generating electricity.

“I understand that there’s concerns that the emissions in this region will go up and that is a fact,” Coady told council.

He added however, that overall emissions across the province would go down because the gas plant would enable NB Power to stop burning dirtier fuels as more intermittent renewables such as wind and solar are brought onto the grid.

Coady also pointed out that the gas plant would burn fuels to generate power, on average, only 7% of the time.

Transboundary pollution

Rothfuss says Coady’s acknowledgment that emissions will rise across the region confirms concerns about pollution crossing provincial boundaries which is a federal issue that would not be covered under a provincial environmental impact assessment.

“These peaker plants do environmental harm,” he says, “and it doesn’t matter whether they’re operating 5%, 10%, or 7% of the time because they run dirty when they start up and the impact can be devastating, especially from a human public health perspective.”

He adds that the health and environmental harms are well documented from the thousands of peaker plants operating across the globe.

Earlier this month, Rothfuss wrote to federal Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin requesting a full federal environmental review of the project partly because of transboundary pollution issues.

On Friday, he updated his request mentioning Coady’s admission to council that greenhouse gas emissions will rise across the region and that PROENERGY is now planning to truck wastewater from the site, possibly to a disposal facility in Halifax.

Constitutional treaty rights

Federal Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin. Photo: Mélanie Provencher, House of Commons

Rothfuss’s latest letter to Dabrusin also mentions Coady’s comment about the project going ahead without an Indigenous partnership and calls on the federal government to honour its obligation under Section 35 of Canada’s constitution to respect aboriginal treaty rights.

“The federal Crown cannot stand by as a passive observer while a crown corporation explicitly bypasses the necessity of Indigenous consent on unceded territory, particularly when the ongoing Mi’kmaw Rights Impact Assessment remains highly contested and incomplete,” his letter states, referring to the rights impact assessment being conducted on behalf of New Brunswick’s nine Mi’kmaq First Nations.

Rothfuss says he finds it frustrating that NB Power began by claiming there was Indigenous participation.

“They gave people the illusion that it was there and now they’re coming back and saying, ‘it’s not there, and therefore, we don’t really need it because it’s not required,'” he says.

“Well, it is required and the point I’m trying to make with the federal government is that it’s their mandate to regulate this and make sure that the Indigenous communities are being treated fairly and brought to the table for consultation, and that they’re heard,” he says.

Posted in Environment, Indigenous affairs, NB Power, Town of Sackville, Town of Tantramar | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Tantramar council renews opposition to NB Power gas plant, despite doubts it will matter

Posted on July 16, 2026 by brucewark

Councillor Kristen LeBlanc

Tantramar Town Council has once again approved sending a letter to Premier Holt urging her government to stop all further work on the development of a 500 MW gas/diesel plant on the Chignecto Isthmus.

But several members of council who voted to send the letter expressed mixed feelings about it while Councillor Barry Hicks voiced his opposition because he said it is not within the town’s jurisdiction.

Tuesday’s motion was introduced by Councillor Kristen LeBlanc whose ward includes Centre Village near the proposed site of the big gas plant.

The motion urged a halt to the project “to protect the social and environmental well-being of  the citizens of Tantramar and all of New Brunswick and to consider lower-cost alternatives here that are available.”

“Our responsibility as a council is to ask difficult questions, to represent our residents, to speak when we believe something is not in the best interest of our municipality,” LeBlanc said.

“So what I’m asking council tonight is to understand that supporting this motion does not mean that we oppose economic development,” she added.

“It means that we support reasonable and smart development; development that’s going to protect our environment; development that’s going to respect our residents and their health; development that’s going to create local lasting benefits and development that reflects where Canada is headed, not where it has been.”

‘Creature of the province’

Councillor Allison Butcher

Although Councillor Allison Butcher said she would be voting in favour of sending a letter, she questioned the wisdom of telling the provincial government what to do.

“Municipal governments are a creature of the province,” she said.

“We are here and allowed the authority that we have only through the province,” she added.

“They have a policy and procedure in place that we don’t agree with. I don’t like it, but this is akin to a child telling their parent that things are going to change.”

Butcher predicted the province would ignore the town’s letter for a couple of reasons.

First, the premier promised to come and talk to council, but so far, hasn’t done so and secondly, “it’s a little bit like us telling our boss the way we want [things],” she said.

“We do need to advocate for our community and our constituents. I just wanted to say that although I will support it, I don’t think that it’s going to win us any favours.”

Councillor Barry Hicks said he would vote against sending a letter because the gas plant isn’t within the municipality’s jurisdiction.

“The previous council already sent a letter off to the government opposing this, so I feel we have other important things that we can work on other than this,” Hicks said.

‘What else?’

Councillor Alyssa Greene

Councillor Alyssa Greene said she would be voting in favour, but agreed with Councillor Butcher that the letter would probably fall on deaf ears.

“Unfortunately, we’re not the decision makers on this one,” she said.

“What I would like to hear from your community is, you know, what can we do to ensure that we don’t end up in this predicament again?” Greene said speaking directly to dozens of people in the audience who were there to oppose the gas plant.

“What do you see [regarding] policy and bylaws that you would like to see in place? What can we proactively do rather than being reactionary as we are right now?” she asked.

She said residents should continue to speak out against the gas plant, but should also think about what else is needed to prevent such a situation from happening again.

“I’m looking for the ‘what else’ right now,” Greene said.

Mayor Wiggins-Colwell said she agreed the gas plant is out of the municipality’s jurisdiction.

“But we certainly do support the residents and the people opposed to this project,” she said. “So, we will be supporting you.”

‘Big noise’

Deputy Mayor Josh Goguen

Deputy Mayor Josh Goguen said he would also support the motion as he did in December when the previous council voted to send a letter to the premier.

“I think, yes, they might not listen to us,” he said, “but I’ll take the French term of tintamarre, which means big noise. So if we keep on making noise, they might listen to us at one point.

“So definitely I think we need to keep on advocating for our citizens and making their voice heard because they need somebody in their corner,” Goguen concluded.

The final vote on the motion was 8 to 1. Voting in favour: Mayor Wiggins-Colwell, Deputy Mayor Josh Goguen, Councillors Kristen LeBlanc, Allison Butcher, Alyssa Greene, Wayne Wells, Tori Weldon and Haidee Robertson.

Voting against: Councillor Barry Hicks.

Note: Councillors Haidee Robertson, Tori Weldon and Wayne Wells did not speak on the motion.

Posted in Environment, NB Power, Town of Sackville, Town of Tantramar | Tagged | 3 Comments

NB Power VP says Indigenous financial participation not essential for Tantramar gas plant

Posted on July 15, 2026 by brucewark

NB Power VP Brad Coady speaking to Tantramar Town Council

NB Power Vice President Brad Coady says the 500 MW gas/diesel plant near Centre Village could go ahead without an Indigenous financial or equity partnership.

“Yes, I believe it could. It [Indigenous participation] is not a part of the EUB regulatory process or the EIA regulatory process,” he told reporters Tuesday night at Tantramar Town Hall.

Coady said that Indigenous participation would be “a highly desired outcome,” and he added that projects with wide support “are a lot easier than when we see a lot of opposition.”

He was responding to a reporter’s questions about a report from Auditor General Paul Martin that said NB Power’s agreement with PROENERGY requires the American company to establish “a partnership and consultation with Indigenous communities.”

The A-G’s report added that an amendment to the agreement last December “allows PROENERGY to withdraw from the project and recover pre-development costs if an Indigenous partnership is not finalized by mid-2026.”

Martin told the legislature’s public accounts committee last month that the apparent lack of such a partnership raised doubts about whether the project could go ahead.

“I’d say we’re darn close to mid-2026 so I’m expecting we should know by this summer what’s going to happen there. Are they finding a partner or is this a dead duck?” the A-G asked.

But on Tuesday night, Coady suggested that it would be enough to give First Nations an opportunity to participate in the project.

“We’re hopeful or mindful that if the First Nations want or tell us that they would like to have an opportunity to economically participate in a project, that the opportunity is provided for them,” he said before mentioning ongoing Indigenous partnerships in renewable wind and solar projects.

“In this case, it’s a little bit of a different project because it does have fossil fuel or an emissions component to it, but that opportunity still exists for First Nations participation,” he said.

Earlier claims

Coady was speaking one year to the day after NB Power announced the gas plant project in a news release that contained quotes from Jim Ward, General Manager of the North Shore Mi’kmaq Tribal Council suggesting that an Indigenous partnership had been formed with PROENERGY.

Later, the U.S. company displayed slides during community information sessions in Sackville claiming such a partnership existed and that the gas plant project would be owned by PROENERGY and the Tribal Council.

PROENERGY slide on display last August during two public information sessions in Sackville

However, during a community question and answer session last August in Sackville, a representative of an Indigenous sovereign wealth fund admitted that although the Tribal Council had options to invest in the project, its seven chiefs had not yet decided to form a partnership with PROENERGY.

The President and CEO of NB power acknowledged that there were still no Indigenous partners in the project during her testimony before the legislature’s public accounts committee last month.

“They are working hard on it right now,” Lori Clark said.

“I can’t give you a timeline,” she added “and we’ve had several conversations in terms of the timeline, but as you know, as First Nations would tell us, it will take the time it takes to get an agreement.”

To read Erica Butler’s CBC report, click here.

Posted in NB Power, Town of Tantramar | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Gaspereau Press moving into Sackville train station with plans to open its doors to the public

Posted on July 14, 2026 by brucewark

Gaspereau Press owner Keagan Hawthorne in front of the Sackville train station’s old ticket booth

Keagan Hawthorne, the new owner of the Gaspereau Press says he’s hoping to move his literary publishing company into the 119-year-old Sackville train station by Christmas where it will offer waiting room space and washrooms for VIA Rail passengers and also be open to members of the public.

“We’re really excited to be able to open our print shop to the public and to invite the community in and be able to show the community how we make books and why we make books the way we do,” Hawthorne told reporters today as he stood by the ticket booth in the old station.

He said he had his eye on the Sackville train station after he decided to buy Gaspereau Press from Gary Dunfield and Andrew Steeves who had been operating out of a shop in Kentville, Nova Scotia.

“Visually, it’s a really appealing building. It has the space. It has a really skookum floor that can support our presses, that’s a consideration when you’re moving in large equipment,” Hawthorne says, “so the structure of the building made sense and works for our operation.”

Hawthorne is leasing the station from the town for $9,600 a year and will be responsible for paying the full cost of renovations.

He initially plans to occupy the northern third of the station where there will be space for an open-plan office, his printing workshop with its three presses, a small store that will sell Gaspereau books and other items such as stationery and pens as well as a space for VIA passengers.

“As the press expands, we will take up more of the building and the long-term goal is to have a portion of it be rentable to another small business,” he says, adding it could be a café, a repair shop, an artist’s studio or anything like that.

‘Taking care with language’

Hawthorne outside the historic station on the VIA platform

Gaspereau Press has been publishing poetry, fiction and non-fiction since it was founded in 1997.

Hawthorne, who moved to Sackville from B.C. in 2018, became its new owner in January after a two-year apprenticeship during which he learned how the presses ran, how the books were made, edited and designed.

“I was originally attracted to setting up a press and becoming a publisher, mostly because I was interested in being a printer first and foremost,” he says.

“I’m also a poet and I believe that taking care with language and being really deliberate about the language that we use is just as important and just as necessary in this moment in our culture,” he adds.

“And so, being a literary press combines both of those focuses. We publish amazing writers,” he says. “I’m always humbled and so grateful to get to work with the authors that publish with Gaspereau Press.”

To read a CHMA story about Gaspereau Press’s current location in the Sackville industrial park, click here.

To visit the Gaspereau Press website, click here.

Posted in Town of Tantramar | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Mi’kmaq-led study to test moose for DDT and glyphosate contamination

Posted on July 11, 2026 by brucewark

By: John Chilibeck, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Source: The Daily Gleaner
July 9, 2026

Bald eagle about to fly in Alaska. Photo: Andy Morffew, Wikipedia

The soaring comeback of the bald eagle uplifts Ethan Augustine.

The senior biologist with the North Shore Mi’kmaq Tribal Council says the banning of the pesticide DDT in New Brunswick in 1968 allowed the large bird of prey to thrive once again.

“I remember being a kid and you’d be, like, ‘Oh, there’s an eagle. That’s so cool,’ because it was so rare,” says Augustine who is from the Mi’kmaq community of Metepenagiag, on the Miramichi, river.

“But now you’ll see six in one tree, and then you’ll go 15 minutes down the road, and there are four more in another tree. You’re seeing all kinds of them.”

Massive amounts of aerial spraying of the chemical in the 1950s and 1960s killed spruce budworm – an enemy of the lumber and paper industry – but also made its way into fish that the eagles would eat. The contaminants in their bodies made their eggshells thinner and weaker, causing them to break before chicks could hatch.

Over time, the bald eagle population plunged, until DDT was banned.

“It is good that they made a comeback because the eagle is such a culturally important species for the Mi’kmaq and Wolastoqey,” Augustine says, referring to his people in eastern New Brunswick and the other major Indigenous group on the western side of the province.

“We never got so much as an apology for almost wiping out one of our most culturally important species, right?”

Augustine also wonders how the old use of DDT and the chemical glyphosate, still sprayed by the pulp and paper industry to kill young broadleaf trees to promote the growth of evergreens, has affected another culturally significant species: moose.

Bull moose browses beaver pond. Photo: Walter Ezell, Wikipedia

This week, his tribal council announced it had secured $150,000 in federal funding to study whether those chemicals are affecting moose, or tia’m, the traditional food for Mi’kmaq. The project will test moose liver tissue for DDT, glyphosate and their metabolites in the Miramichi area and the Acadian peninsula.

It will combine lab testing with community knowledge to help understand whether contaminants are entering the food source and what further action could help prevent contamination.

Moose hunting was completely banned in New Brunswick between 1937 and 1960 because of overhunting, but since then, the animals have had a successful resurgence.

Last year, more than 58,000 New Brunswickers – or 7% of the entire population – applied for just under 4,800 available moose hunting licences, one of the most popular lotteries around.

Indigenous communities hold their own fall moose hunts, typically in the weeks after New Brunswick’s strictly regulated five-day hunt that takes place in late September.

Augustine said the regular and Indigenous hunts are separated to ensure less pressure is put on the animals and the environment.

Each First Nation, he says, will typically bag between two and 10 moose for communal purposes, dividing them up for elders and families. Individuals who want to exercise their Aboriginal treaty rights can also go hunt in the fall when they want.

Augustine, who has successfully hunted four moose himself over the years, says his people want to ensure the animals remain healthy.

The study hopes to combine traditional Indigenous knowledge and western academic research using what the Mi’kmaq call Etuaptmumk, or Two-Eyed Seeing.

The liver tissue of 40 moose will be tested for DDT, glyphosate, and their metabolites through accredited analytical laboratories based at Canadian universities, with support from academic researchers. The project will begin with community talks ahead of sample collection during this year’s and next year’s fall hunts.

Community feedback will help guide how information is gathered, understood, and shared, the organizers say, with the results “brought back to communities and leadership to support future conversations about moose, traditional food, and pesticide concerns in New Brunswick forests,” according to a news release.

Josh Kurek, professor in the Mt. A. geography & environment dept. Photo: Mount Allison University

Josh Kurek, a professor at Mount Allison University who’s studied the persistent effect of DDT on lake trout in New Brunswick, and Katherine Chong, a PhD student at McGill University in Montreal who studies Indigenous health, are also participating in the research.

“This project is about making sure concerns from our communities are taken seriously, especially when they involve traditional food and what is happening in our forests,” said Jim Ward, the general manager of the tribal council, which represents seven of nine Mi’kmaq communities in New Brunswick.

“We are going to look at this through Indigenous Knowledge and lab testing, and make sure what we learn is brought back to our community members.”

Augustine says that the banning of DDT spraying likely improved moose health over time. However, Kurek’s research showed that the chemical is still in the environment of north-central New Brunswick, 58 years after it was last sprayed.

“Where we’re finding it in the bottom of lakes and in lake sediments, that’s where moose often forage,” Augustine said.

“Moose are known to go underwater up to 20 feet to eat the aquatic plants they love. So, DDT could be in their system too, not just trout. It could be that it affects their liver, but not their muscle tissue. It could be found in both. We just don’t know.”

The scientist said once the findings are ready, they’ll be made public.

“If for some reason DDT is adversely affecting our traditional food sources, we want someone to be held accountable for it, right?”

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

Posted in Environment, Interesting people, LJI stories, Mount Allison University | 1 Comment

120 demonstrators line Sackville bridge saying fight isn’t over against NB Power gas plant

Posted on July 9, 2026 by brucewark

Demonstrators wave to honking cars & trucks passing under the Main St. bridge at TransCanada Exit 504

About 120 demonstrators waved to passing traffic on the TransCanada highway and on Sackville’s Main Street Thursday in the latest protest against NB Power’s plans for a 500 MW gas peaker plant near Centre Village.

“The turnout today is amazing,” said Tantramar MLA Megan Mitton. “We’re getting a lot of honks and a lot of support as folks drive by and I think it really shows that there’s no social licence for this project in our community.”

Truckers and motorists honked their horns before whizzing under the bridge on the busy highway

Mitton said the demonstration as well as the Protect the Chignecto Isthmus Coalition’s application for a judicial review of the Energy & Utility Board’s decision to approve the gas plant shows that the community hasn’t given up the fight against the gas plant.

MLA Megan Mitton at today’s demonstration

“I think it’s important that we show that we haven’t given up, that we show that this is still really important to us, and that even though it’s summertime, people are taking this beautiful sunny day to stand up and get the message out, and the Holt government needs to be listening,” Mitton said.

She added that NB Power should be listening too.

“New Brunswickers want to move away from burning fossil fuels and towards renewable energy. And it won’t happen overnight, but it needs to happen. And we need to be strategic about it. Unfortunately, NB Power seems to be allergic to renewables, to solar. And it’s hard to even understand their logic, but they are definitely stuck in a different century,” Mitton said.

Hudson Rogers and Fern Losier said a gas peaker plant would threaten wildlife on the ecologically sensitive Chignecto Isthmus

“I’m here because I’m a student in chemistry and I’ve heard about all the contaminants and all the pollution that gas plants do,” said Université de Moncton student Hudson Rogers.

“I think it’s a very bad idea, plain and simple. I care a lot about the birds and I’ve heard about how gas plants and processing gas can harm them,” he added, referring to the deaths in 2013 of 7,500 songbirds that flew into a burning gas flare at the Canaport LNG facility in Saint John.

“I’ve been going to anti-fracking protests since I was a very young child in Moncton and my parents very much raised me to care a lot about the environment,” said Fern Loiselle who is a recent graduate of U de M.

“I consider myself a naturalist where I very much believe that nature has their own rights. Rivers have river rights, trees have tree rights, humans have human rights,” she said, adding that there are endangered bats on the Isthmus as well as golden and bald eagles and plants that need protection in that space.

“And because humans are the ones destroying it, humans need to be the ones defending it as well and that’s why I’m here today.”

Ward 4 Councillor Kristen LeBlanc

“I think this demonstration is spectacular,” said Tantramar councillor Kristen LeBlanc whose ward includes Centre Village where NB Power wants to put the gas plant.

“As I rolled up and parked my vehicle, I kind of started to get a little bit teary-eyed to see how much compassion there is towards this municipality. And it’s not just people from the municipality that showed up, it’s people from the surrounding areas, Memramcook and Moncton, and it’s just a spectacular turnout,” she said.

LeBlanc added that she plans to introduce a motion at next week’s council meeting reaffirming Tantramar’s official opposition to the gas plant.

The meeting will be held on Tuesday, July 14th exactly one year after NB Power issued its news release announcing its plan for a Centre Village gas plant.

LeBlanc pointed to the meeting agenda showing that NB Power VP Brad Coady is scheduled to make a presentation to council.

“Yes, it will be a year to the day,” she said. “Yes, happy anniversary,” she added with an ironic smile.

Posted in NB Power, New Brunswick politics, Town of Tantramar | Tagged | 2 Comments

As N.B. pledges stronger right to info law, expert questions secrecy over Tantramar fire reports

Posted on July 6, 2026 by brucewark

Toby Mendel, executive director, Centre for Law and Democracy. Photo: CLD

An international expert on right to information (RTI) is welcoming New Brunswick’s  goal of making its Right to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (RTIPPA) one of the strongest laws of its kind in Canada.

“We almost never see government officials making that kind of commitment,” Toby Mendel said last week during a telephone interview with Warktimes.

Mendel, who is executive director of the Centre for Law and Democracy (CLD) in Halifax, was referring to last month’s news release saying the Holt government would like to strengthen RTIPPA next year so that it reaches 100 points on the CLD rating scale.

“To me, that was a really exceptional statement,” Mendel said. “I don’t know whether they will live up to that, but they said it, so they should live up to it.”

At the moment, RTIPPA ranks last among Canadian provinces, territories and the federal government with only 75 points out of a possible 150 partly because the government doesn’t publicize it enough and partly because the law has too many vague exceptions allowing officials to withhold broad classes of information without having to show that releasing the information would cause significant harm.

Canadian RTI Ratings
Province / Territory Rating Province / Territory Rating
Newfoundland and Labrador 112 Quebec 84
Manitoba 96 Nova Scotia 83
British Columbia 95 Northwest Territories 83
Canada (national law) 95 Nunavut 82
Prince Edward Island 94 Saskatchewan 82
Yukon 93 Alberta 78
Ontario 90 New Brunswick 75
Source: Centre for Law and Democracy

Provincial review

The Centre for Law and Democracy and 44 other professionals and groups, including Warktimes, made oral or written submissions to provincial officials who conducted a review of RTIPPA last year.

Their report with 48 recommendations to strengthen the law by next spring was released on June 18.

Although the report does mention narrowing certain exceptions that allow officials to withhold information, it does not specifically refer to one that prohibits the release of records from a harassment or personnel investigation.

In 2021, former Sackville CAO Jamie Burke classified the Montana Consulting Group’s workplace assessment of the Sackville fire department as a personnel investigation.

His refusal to release its recommendations under that RTIPPA exception was upheld first by the New Brunswick Ombud and then by the Court of King’s Bench.

Now, the town of Tantramar is citing the same RTIPPA exception to justify its refusal to release any information from the latest investigation into Sackville Fire & Rescue conducted by the Saint John firm VanBuskirk Law.

Public interest override

“I don’t support those kinds of exceptions,” says Toby Mendel.

“It’s not clear to me what this exception is trying to protect. Every exception should identify an interest and protect that interest against harm.”

He adds that RTIPPA already has provisions to protect privacy and any identifying information could be redacted or blacked out to protect privacy.

“The whole idea here is to get as much information out as possible,” he says, adding that CLD advocates overriding exceptions when an important public interest is at stake.

“Access to information is a human right, even in Canada, and certainly under international law, it’s been recognized as a human right,” he says.

—

Town’s legal & HR costs re Sackville Fire & Rescue

Year Cost item Amount
2021 Montana Consulting Group workplace assessment $27,548.90
2024 Town’s legal costs in fighting Coun. Bruce Phinney’s court case seeking release of Montana recommendations $13,572.30
2026 VanBuskirk Law workplace investigation $23,053.85
2026 Cox & Palmer legal costs re fire department investigation $30,609.00
Total $94,784.05

Note: In March, Court of King’s Bench Justice Kathryn Gregory ruled that Saint John police officers’ complaints against Chief Robert Bruce should be made public under the open court principle. “Police complaints, even if in the context of employment related issues, are of concern and interest to the public,” she ruled.

To read a CBC report on her ruling, click here. For the full text, click here.

To read the report on the provincial review of RTIPPA, click here.

To read the CLD submission to the RTIPPA review committee, click here.

To read  the town’s denial of my access to information request for the VanBuskirk report, click here.

For previous Warktimes coverage on the dismal state of New Brunswick’s right to info law, click here.

Posted in Sackville Fire & Rescue, Town of Sackville, Town of Tantramar | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Mt. A. prof says secrecy prevents public from judging Tantramar’s handling of fire dept. crisis

Posted on July 4, 2026 by brucewark

Mount Allison Politics Professor Geoff Martin. Photo contributed

A Mt. A. professor who studies municipal politics is questioning the town’s continuing refusal to release information that could help residents understand what went wrong inside Sackville Fire & Rescue and why former Chief Craig Bowser is no longer with the department.

Geoff Martin says, for example, residents should know the terms of any possible financial settlement with Bowser so they could judge to what extent he was or was not to blame for the continuing turmoil that brought the number of volunteer firefighters this year to only 18 out of a full departmental complement of 43.

“I think the reason any settlement needs to become public is that it would allow people to gauge if the town had cause to dismiss him as chief,” Martin said during a telephone interview.

He added that if Bowser received only a small financial settlement, it could indicate he was largely to blame for the ongoing fire department crisis, while a bigger settlement would suggest the town could not win a lawsuit for wrongful dismissal.

“Was this individual supervised properly and assuming he was evaluated every two years, did he ever get an unsatisfactory performance rating?” Martin asked.

“Was a case ever built, so that legally speaking, he could be fired for minimal cost in terms of legal fees?”

Martin said that without knowing the terms of any settlement, the public will never know.

Public’s right to know

Martin referred to a previous case that occurred after he was elected to Sackville town council in 1998.

“There is that past precedent in the Dennis Egyedy case where Sackville council provided an incentive for him to resign as CAO,” he said.

“I was chair of the finance committee and may also have been chair of the personnel committee and a majority of council agreed, this is the people’s money and so we told the public the financial settlement was $47,500,” he said.

“And if the council has to take lumps for having done this, then so be it, right? The people need to know how their money is being spent.”

Martin says these days there’s a tendency to treat a municipality not as a democracy where citizens have a right to know, but more as a pseudo-corporation where the shareholders are seen as a nuisance.

Blanket secrecy

He also questions the secrecy around the findings of the VanBuskirk law firm’s investigation into workplace turmoil within Sackville Fire & Rescue.

“I think some kind of summary of the VanBuskirk report would help the whole community move on,” he says, adding that the recruitment of more volunteer firefighters has obviously been a problem.

“When you just get bland assurances from management telling you, ‘Oh, you know we’ve got a plan,’ well, tell us what the plan is and how it relates to what the investigators found,” he says.

“Tantramar is a very diverse town, and one thing you could ask yourself is, ‘Well, are we trying to recruit non-traditional people to the department and making sure that they feel welcome,’ i.e., like how many women in the department? That’s more than half the population,” he says.

“We’re increasingly, especially among young people, this is an increasingly racialized community. So what about racialized people in the department?

“So I think, you know, those are questions too and it’s harder to ask those questions when you really don’t know what the investigation found.”

This is the first of a two-part series. Next, the flaws in the town’s case for keeping HR matters secret.

Posted in Mount Allison University, Sackville Fire & Rescue, Town of Sackville, Town of Tantramar | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Paddlers try to put a damper on ‘nation-building’ mine project

Posted on July 3, 2026 by brucewark

By: John Chilibeck, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Source: The Daily Gleaner
July 2, 2026

More than 100 paddlers glide down the Nashwaak River on Saturday June 27, in opposition to the proposed Sisson tungsten and molybdenum mine near Fredericton. Photo: Valerya Edelman, NB Media Co-op

More than 100 people canoed and kayaked together on the Nashwaak and St. John rivers last weekend, as a protest paddle against a mining project that has the enthusiastic support of New Brunswick’s premier and the prime minister.

One of the leaders of the flotilla was Ron Tremblay, who for the last 10 years has served as the traditional Wolastoqey grand chief.

He told Brunswick News the people who paddled leisurely for more than two hours from the Marysville Heritage Centre on the Nashwaak to the St. John River near the Princess Margaret Bridge in Fredericton were deeply concerned about the proposed Sisson mine.

The mine’s location near the headwaters of the Nashwaak about 113 kilometres north of the provincial capital has raised fears that a large berm and tailings pond planned for the site could pollute the wider watershed if it breaches.

Saturday’s fine weather event, dubbed the Great Paddle, was organized by Stop Sisson Mine Coalition, the Nashwaak Watershed Association and Wolastoq Grand Council.

“We wanted to educate more people who aren’t aware of the proposed mine,” the chief said on Monday.

“As well, we wanted to bring people together, just to show how important and sacred our river systems are, and that we need to protect them from any further pollution.”

Carney, Holt support mine

Sisson Mine in last year of operation with approximately 145-hectare open pit, 370 metres deep and tailings pond of over 350 million cubic metres. Figures from Conservation Council of New Brunswick. Photo: Northcliffe Resources Ltd.

Northcliff Resources, based out Vancouver, wants to develop the open-pit tungsten and molybdenum mine near the headwaters and the old village of Stanley. The two heavy metals are used by manufacturers for a wide variety of products.

After being stalled for decades, the project received a huge boost last year from the U.S. Department of War and the government of Canada when they announced $29 million in funding to accelerate its pre-construction and feasibility phases.

Prime Minister Carney later endorsed Sisson as a nation-building project. Premier Susan Holt says the mine promises to create hundreds of jobs over a lifetime and fill government coffers with tens of millions of royalties that could be used to help pay for hospitals and schools.

The CEO of the company, Andrew Ing, told Brunswick News last year his company was working on an updated feasibility study for the project that he hoped to have completed by the second quarter of this year, which ends June 30. He anticipated the project would begin digging the valuable metals out of the ground by 2030.

Over the last couple of weeks, repeated calls and emails to the company by Brunswick News have gone unanswered.

Minister of Natural Resources John Herron declined an interview request.

However, in a prepared statement on Tuesday, he told Brunswick News that his Liberal government’s new critical minerals strategy recognized the growing global demand for precious commodities while placing strong emphasis on environmental stewardship, Indigenous and community engagement, scientific oversight, and transparent regulatory processes.

“We believe New Brunswick has an opportunity to play a significant role in supplying the world with minerals needed for clean energy technologies and economic growth,” the provincial minister said.

“However, any project moving forward in this province must meet rigorous environmental standards and demonstrate that it can operate safely and responsibly,” he added.

No meetings with local council

Mayor David Sweeney. Photo: Nashwaak Rural Community

David Sweeney, the mayor of Nashwaak Rural Community, isn’t convinced. He took part in the paddle protest.

“I participated because I felt it was important to show support for the community members who have been raising concerns,” he told Brunswick News in an email Monday.

“My role requires me to stay connected to the people I serve, and being present there was part of that responsibility.”

Last February, his council raised similar concerns with Sisson.

“Council supports development that is done responsibly and with full transparency,” Sweeney said at the time in a prepared statement.

“However, the protection of the Nashwaak and Tay watersheds is not negotiable. These waters are fundamental not only to our community, but to the downstream communities and ecosystems that rely on them.”

The statement warned that his community would suffer disproportionally if there were a tailings breach. It also said the council remained concerned that the company hadn’t met key environmental requirements yet, nor meaningfully engaged with the local politicians up to that point.

Sweeney said that nothing has changed since then.

“There has not been any meaningful interaction with council,” he wrote Monday.

“We have not received commitments for a meeting, nor has there been substantive follow-up from them.”

Poisoned waters

The elected chiefs and councils of the six Wolastoqey communities in the St. John River valley, whose traditional territory includes the Nashwaak watershed, have already given tacit approval to the mine by accepting a multimillion-dollar accommodation agreement with the provincial government in 2017 that will give them a share of future royalties from the project.

Ron Tremblay does not feel bound by that agreement. He became leader of the Wolastoqey Grand Council after being selected by several elders from the Indigenous communities.

He said from an economic standpoint, he didn’t think locals would benefit from the hundreds of construction and mining jobs that would be created, pointing out that much of the work would be carried about by unionized crews from other places.

Ron Tremblay, traditiional Wolastoqey grand chief. Photo: St. Thomas University

But he is chiefly against the mine for environmental reasons. Last November and early December, he travelled half way around the world to New Zealand, where he said he met two representatives of the Todd Group, major investors in Northcliff. The Grand Council also participated in an online meeting with Northcliff executives earlier this year. He described both meetings as polite and cordial.

“They reassured us that the mine was years away from being developed,” he said. “I told them to look at the footage of what happened with fracking near Rexton. I said, ‘we are not a violent people, we are very peaceful,’ but that we wanted to make sure that, you know, our people were safe, and I said the majority of our people who have spoken do not want that mine here.”

In October 2013, RCMP tried to remove a blockade near Rexton in eastern New Brunswick led by people from the Mi’kmaq community of Elsipogtog and their supporters, who had been trying to stop the company Southwestern Energy Resources (SWN) from doing exploratory testing for shale gas.

A massive fight ensued, with dozens arrested and several RCMP vehicles burned. SWN workers eventually left the province and never returned.

Asked if he’d be willing to compromise if Northcliff put in stronger environmental safeguards for the mine, Tremblay said no.

The chief referred to the 2014 catastrophe at Mount Polley, B.C., when the unexpected collapse of a tailings pond dam released about 24 billion litres of toxic mining wastewater and sediment into Polley Lake, Hazeltine Creek, and pristine Quesnel Lake.

The contamination is still being felt today, both in studies done on fish and plant life and for Indigenous communities who draw their drinking water from those water bodies.

“For the Indigenous people, the First Nations people, who relied on that area for water, drinking water, recreation, and fishing and food, it was all poisoned, and even still today, they haven’t recovered from that,” the chief said.

Tremblay is not persuaded by arguments that hundreds of other Canadian mines have been running since then without major incidents.

“The animals, birds and insects will be poisoned when they drink the water in the toxic tailings pond. We can’t allow that to happen.”

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

To read an NB Media Co-op report on the paddle protest by Chris Thompson, click here.

Posted in Environment, LJI stories | Tagged | Leave a comment

First Nations Chiefs & Holt gov’t mum on fracking

Posted on June 28, 2026 by brucewark

By: John Chilibeck, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Source: The Daily Gleaner
June 27, 2026

Allan Polchies, chief of Sitansisk or St. Mary’s First Nation. Photo: Wolastoqey Nation

More than a week after Premier Susan Holt held a closed-door meeting with New Brunswick’s First Nations chiefs, her Liberal government is still not saying anything about one of the main topics of discussion – the explosive issue of drilling for natural gas.

Brunswick News has talked to several chiefs who confirmed that the idea of exploiting the resource was part of the talks, a sensitive issue in a province where pushback from opponents, including Indigenous demonstrators, led to a moratorium on fracking that has been in place for a dozen years.

Allan Polchies, the chief of Sitansisk or St. Mary’s First Nation in Fredericton, said in an interview at a community event this week that natural gas was just one of several discussion points in the June 17 meeting with the premier.

“Well, of course, everyone’s going to have opinions on it. You know, definitely, we will have engagements with our citizens of our nation and have strong conversations about it. But, you know, that’s way, way down the road at this point.”

Polchies said his First Nation council would hold wider discussions with the community on the issue in the future. Asked for his personal opinion on whether gas should be drilled, Polchies smiled.

“I don’t decide for the people, the people decide for me,” he said. Then he made a joke. “You know I’m up for re-election in October, right?”

Sensitive issue

The idea of drilling for gas comes at a volatile time. The Liberal government is under pressure to fix its budget deficit, which at $1.4 billion is a record in the province, about one-tenth of its overall budget.

Natural gas exploitation could potentially win the province tens of millions of dollars in royalties. Geologists think New Brunswick has an estimated 70 trillion cubic feet of the resource underground, mostly in the Frederick Brook shale between Sussex and Elgin, although there are other pockets north of Fredericton and Moncton.

Prime Minister Carney has tried to position Canada as an energy superpower and talked about natural gas as a transition fuel that emits fewer greenhouse gases than oil or coal would when burned. One of his key cabinet ministers, Dominic LeBlanc, recently suggested the Government of Canada would enthusiastically support the New Brunswick government if it chose to lift the province’s shale gas moratorium.

At the same time, Holt has tried hard to improve relations between the provincial government and First Nations, building a lot of goodwill that former Progressive Conservative Premier Blaine Higgs, an ardent gas industry supporter, didn’t have.

But there are still huge environmental concerns. Opponents say shale gas drilling would still contribute to dangerous greenhouse gases that warm the planet at an alarming rate, pollute the air and deplete fresh water in vast amounts. They also warn of the chemical cocktail in the wastewater left behind.

More than a decade ago, hundreds of members from the province’s biggest First Nation, Elsipogtog, helped stop the American firm SWN Resources from doing exploratory work within what they consider their traditional territory near Rexton, not far from the eastern coast.

On Oct. 17, 2013, ongoing protests over the work led to an RCMP raid on blockades and an encampment that quickly turned ugly. Several police cruisers were torched. Dozens of people, many of them Indigenous, were arrested. When the Liberal government of Brian Gallant took over in 2014, it quickly imposed a moratorium on new exploration and drilling, stating it couldn’t be lifted until five conditions were met.

They include getting social licence through community consultations, First Nations buy-in, clear and credible scientific information on the impacts of fracking on water, air, and public health, proper wastewater management, and proof of the economic benefit.

‘Fighting over nothing’?

Brunswick News asked spokespeople from the Department of Indigenous Affairs and the premier’s office about the meeting with the chiefs, and for the provincial government’s perspective on the talks about the possibility of developing natural gas.

They acknowledged the request and then did not reply to several follow up messages. Holt is on vacation this week, but a request to interview Indigenous Affairs Minister Keith Chiasson was ignored.

Frank McKenna in 2023 during an interview with Warktimes

Former Liberal premier Frank McKenna, a huge supporter of natural gas development, told Brunswick News at a recent community event in Fredericton he could understand the Holt government’s delicate situation.

Asked if he had discussed the issue with Holt, he laughed and said he’d talked to every premier since he left office in 1997 about the need to develop natural gas.

McKenna said the world had changed since the moratorium was introduced in 2014.

“At a time when we’re running budget deficits of over a billion dollars a year, at a time when the entire country is trying to deal with this existential threat from south of the border, at a time where Europe desperately needs access to gas from sources other than Russia, I think it’s only natural that New Brunswick look at this issue and try to determine exactly how large your resource is. Because we may be fighting over nothing, or we may be fighting over something very substantial.”

McKenna, who sits on the board of Canadian Natural Resources Limited, one of the country’s largest independent crude oil and natural gas producers, said the Holt government would have to move step by step to try to lift the moratorium.

“First of all, we need to create the social license to move, and the premier seems to be systematically working at that. I think we need to gather intelligence. By that, I mean, we need to assess the nature of the resource, and at some point, we would need to have geothermal work done, and seismic work could determine what the resource looks like,” he said.

“Until we know that, we’re fighting over nothing.”

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

Posted in Environment, Indigenous affairs, LJI stories | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Costly choices ahead for Wheaton Covered Bridge as town weighs its future

Posted on June 23, 2026 by brucewark

Interior shot of the Wheaton Covered Bridge showing holes in the roof and the closure sign installed in July 2024

Tantramar Town Engineer Jon Eppell painted a grim picture Monday as he outlined various options for the future of the 110-year-old Wheaton Covered Bridge on the High Marsh Road.

“There is a very significant cost to doing anything with this bridge and it is not a one-time cost,” Eppell told town council.

“These types of bridges require frequent maintenance, something significant every five years and something quite significant, much more costly to do, every 15 to 20 years,” he said, as he outlined four options if the town chooses to take ownership of the bridge from the province.

But he also warned that an engineering study that would cost about $75,000 would be needed before any options could be considered.

Eppell said restoring the Wheaton Covered Bridge as a recreational crossing for pedestrians and cyclists would probably cost more than a million dollars while repairing and moving it to a new location would likely cost significantly more.

He said the bridge could be dismantled with the wood reused as a gazebo or benches that would maintain some elements of its history.

He said the town could build a much smaller ‘replica’ covered bridge at another site, an option that could cost several million dollars or it could simply let the province retain ownership, remove the bridge and dispose of it.

Parallel bridge

Town Engineer Jon Eppell

Eppell noted that the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure (DTI) is planning to install a two-lane parallel bridge nearby that could accommodate road traffic and heavy farm vehicles.

DTI is close to purchasing the land that would be needed, Eppell said, and might build the parallel bridge next year.

“The reason that they have chosen to go on a parallel alignment is to allow Tantramar some time to sort out what we want to do as a community,” he said.

Deputy Mayor Josh Goguen suggested that moving the bridge onto the TransCanada trail might be a good idea.

“But I would like to see what the community wants to do with it before we come to some type of conclusion,” he said.

Councillor Alyssa Greene wondered what the people who built the bridge would want the town to do with it now.

“Would they say, ‘throw good money after something that’s broken’ or ‘construct something that’s serviceable to the community now?'” she asked, adding that she felt her forebears would say to build something useful, but preserve what they did in spirit and knowledge.

“I suspect the people that built that bridge would be amazed that it’s still around and that we haven’t replaced it with something more modern,” Eppell replied.

“It was fairly easy for them to build, but it was untreated timber out on the marsh very close to salt water and everything else and quite damp in those areas, so I think that this bridge has lasted 110 years is rather remarkable,” he said.

“We’ve gotten the money out of this one,” he added.

Mayor Wiggins-Colwell noted that it would cost DTI a million dollars to dismantle and dispose of the bridge and suggested that perhaps the town could use that money to restore it as a recreational bridge for pedestrians and cyclists.

“I think we need a lot more discussion on the Wheaton Covered Bridge,” she said.

Later, during the public question period, CAO Jennifer Borne acknowledged that the previous council had authorized the formation of a citizen’s committee to identify funding sources to restore the bridge and to integrate it into the town’s trail systems.

“Given the conversation this afternoon,” Borne said, “I hear from council that they’re still looking to form a committee.”

Symbol of old marsh

Logan Atkinson, past president Tantramar Heritage Trust

Logan Atkinson, past president of Tantramar Heritage Trust, says he’s glad to hear the town is still planning to form an ad hoc citizens committee.

“I would have liked to have seen the committee established in January or February, shortly after the resolution was passed by council,” he says.

“We do now have some time to get ourselves organized,” he adds, “but every month that goes by means the bridge is getting less and less secure and that’s a worry. So, let’s go, we’re ready to go.”

Atkinson says he would like to see the bridge restored for recreational use and as a tourist attraction along with the nearby TransCanada trail, the Campbell Carriage Factory Museum and one of the last hay barns on the High Marsh Road that is owned by Tantramar Heritage Trust.

“Package that together? Oh my gosh. You know, that’s a tourist mecca. Like, people on bikes and hiking and look, everybody would love that.”

Atkinson says that dismantling the bridge and using the wood to build something else would be like saying the old bridge itself has no value.

“Let’s not give up. This is one of the last remaining real symbols of the old marsh that we all inherited. And let’s really see what we can do with it.”

To read Jon Eppell’s written report on the Wheaton Covered Bridge, click here.

Posted in Town of Tantramar | Tagged , , | 9 Comments