Premier Holt faces pushback from Tantramar council over Aulac tolls

Posted on August 22, 2026 by brucewark

Councillor Allison Butcher (R) questioning Premier Holt about the plan to put toll booths on the highway at Aulac

Premier Holt tried to defend her government’s plan to put toll booths on the TransCanada highway at Aulac near the Nova Scotia border as she answered persistent questions from Tantramar Councillor Allison Butcher and several of her council colleagues during a wide-ranging discussion Wednesday that lasted just over nine minutes.

“I am not sure if you’re aware, but Sackville, Cumberland, Amherst, Strait Shores, we’re really intertwined,” Butcher told Holt.

“There are many people who live here and work there and vice versa, where we share family members,” Butcher said, adding that two of her four siblings live in Amherst.

“People move back and forth across that [border] daily for work, for enjoyment, for business, all of that,” she continued.

“We saw what a huge difference it made for us when it was closed because of COVID,” Butcher said.

She added that she realized New Brunswick residents would not pay the tolls themselves, but they would affect families, businesses, people going back and forth for work and health care and even custody arrangements affecting children.

“Is there anything in the works to protect these people?” she asked.

Friends & family passes

“There are some things in the works, but I think there’s an opportunity for some creativity here,” Holt replied.

She suggested the Nova Scotia health authority could issue toll passes for professionals who work in Sackville but live in Amherst while New Brunswick could consider the concept of a friends and family pass or good neighbour’s pass.

“Something that’s dramatically less expensive,” Holt said, “you know a cost of, I shouldn’t even throw out numbers, like it’s $50 a year and that just gets you covered.”

“With all due respect, we don’t pay $50 now and there are many people living in our communities for whom $50 could make a huge difference,” Butcher shot back.

“We have university students travelling back and forth, we have the Irving Big Stop on the border. My daughter works there and she has as many co-workers from Amherst as from Sackville,” she said.

Butcher added that it may be fine for the Nova Scotia government to pay for health care workers’ passes, but what about patients who need to cross the border to get knee surgeries or other procedures at the Sackville hospital that the community here fought so hard to save.

“The cost of their tolls can get covered if that’s what you mean,” Holt replied.

‘Best location’

Tantramar CAO Jennifer Borne questions Premier Holt as Mayor Wiggins-Colwell (L) listens

Mayor Wiggins-Colwell wondered if the government had considered installing the toll booths in Salisbury to avoid the disruptions they would cause to the closely knit communities on either side of the border.

“I believe that multiple locations were evaluated and this one was determined to be the best location where there was an alternate route,” Holt answered.

“You have to have an alternate route, that’s a requirement,” the premier said.

When Butcher asked about that alternate route, both Holt and Tantramar CAO Jennifer Borne said it would be Rte. 970, the 11.4 kilometre road that connects a Nova Scotia highway at Tidnish Bridge to New Brunswick routes 15 and 16 at Port Elgin.

“It’s not even shouldered,” Borne said.  “It’s not adequate at all.”

“I think there’s lots of ways that we can work out options,” Holt said as the discussion returned to the effects on intertwined communities.

She suggested, for example, that residents who live near the border could be issued friends and family toll passes to give to their friends and family in Nova Scotia.

“The toll proposals have been kicking around for ages as ways to help us pay for infrastructure,” the premier said.

Borne suggested that trying to administer friends and family passes would be “a bit of a mess” because of everyone potentially claiming connections and she wondered about the financial impact of these passes on the $10 million the government is hoping to raise in toll revenues.

“We’ve just tried to recover from local governance reform,” Borne said.

“There’s fiscal reform, there’s property tax reform, so we’re going to tackle all of it,” she added before referring to the effects tolls would have on Tantramar.

“When you look at just these two themes, the economic impact, the social impact, mental impact on our community, we will not survive it.”

“So what are your suggestions?” Holt asked quietly.

“Not yours,” Borne replied as everyone around the table laughed.

This is the second of three reports on Tantramar council’s meeting with Premier Holt. Warktimes was able to attend the meeting after Holt said she had no objection because this was council’s meeting and it was up to them to decide who could attend.

Posted in New Brunswick government, Town of Tantramar | Tagged | Leave a comment

Give us proof Sisson mine won’t threaten waterways: local officials

Posted on August 21, 2026 by brucewark

by John Chilibeck, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Source: Telegraph-Journal
August 20, 2026

Lawn sign being distributed by The Coalition to Stop Sisson Mine

The company that wants to build what the prime minister calls a “nation-building” mine in central New Brunswick has met again with the local government that has serious qualms about the large-scale project.

David Sweeney, the mayor of Nashwaak Rural Community, told Brunswick News his municipal council met virtually with officials from Northcliff Resources on August 11th.

The council includes the mayor and seven ward councillors, whose chief concern when it comes to the development of the Sisson mine is the Nashwaak River that flows through their rural community, centred around the old village of Stanley.

“Our council has always said the protection of the river is of utmost importance,” Sweeney said in an interview on Wednesday. “We want to protect it from any unnatural disaster.”

The politicians learned on the call the Vancouver company’s updated feasibility study on the mine, first expected in June, won’t be completed until September 30th, as previously reported by Brunswick News.

Sweeney said they didn’t hear much new information on the call, and the councillors only posed five or six questions. One of them asked if First Nations were being consulted, and Northcliff assured them private meetings were taking place with Indigenous groups.

First and foremost, the local politicians want proof the mine won’t threaten their waterways, including the Nashwaak and Tay rivers.

CEO Andrew Ing did not reply to a request for comment, nor did anyone else at Northcliff.

The firm, whose major shareholder on the project is the Todd Corporation, based in New Zealand, wants to build an open-pit tungsten and molybdenum mine, with a large tailings pond and earthen dam, near Napadogan, between the communities of Stanley and Juniper, 100 kilometres northwest by road from Fredericton.

Expensive project

On Monday, Northcliff announced it had settled a $7.3-million convertible loan agreement in the full amount plus accrued interest for a total amount of $7.6 million by issuing nearly 32 million shares to Todd Sisson (NZ) Limited. The deal was approved by the company’s board of directors on July 31st.

But that kind of money only scratches the surface. The last feasibility study, already 13 years old, stated that the project would cost more than half a billion dollars to build.

The federal and provincial Liberal governments back the mine, which would mostly dig up tungsten, a heavy metal whose market is largely controlled by China.

“What the world wants is Canada to be the reliable supplier of critical minerals,” Prime Minister Carney said in November 2025 when he announced Sisson would be on the federal government’s major projects list, a huge boost to Northcliff, which has struggled to get the mine up and running.

Talk of a mine opening in the area goes back to 1978, when exploration first took place. Nearly 50 years later, the project is still inching along.

Tungsten is used in heavy industry, largely for cutting and drilling, for military hardware, and everyday household products such as lights, ballpoint pens and cell phones.

Molybdenum is mostly used for steel alloys.

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

For previous coverage, click here.

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

Premier Holt hears Tantramar’s gas plant concerns, offers few answers

Posted on August 20, 2026 by brucewark

Tantramar council meeting with Premier Holt. Centre Right: Mayor Wiggins-Colwell, CAO Jennifer Borne, Premier Holt, Councillors Allison Butcher, Alyssa Greene, Deputy Mayor Josh Goguen, Councillors Kristen LeBlanc, Tori Weldon, Haidee Robertson, Barry Hicks, Wayne Wells [click on photo to enlarge it]

Premier Holt had little to say about NB Power’s proposed 500 MW gas/diesel plant Wednesday during a 50 minute meeting with Tantramar Town Council.

Her only promise during the nine minute discussion about the gas plant was that the provincial department of environment and local government would inform the municipality first before releasing the results of the ongoing environmental impact assessment (EIA) that began about a year ago.

“I was told that the department was going to reach out as soon as there are any developments,” Holt said, “[and] communicate with you (the mayor) and the municipality first.”

Councillor Kristen LeBlanc noted that NB Power VP Brad Coady had told council on July 14th that wastewater from the plant would be trucked across the border into Nova Scotia and she wondered if that would be enough to trigger a more comprehensive EIA.

“I don’t believe that that triggers a comprehensive assessment,” Holt replied.

“Does it make it a trans-boundary issue by any chance?” LeBlanc asked.

“Trans-boundary?” Holt asked, adding moments later that permitting systems are in place when waste products or dangerous goods are transported across provincial and national boundaries.

“There’s quite a bit of waste that comes from Nova Scotia into New Brunswick and from New Brunswick into Nova Scotia and vice versa in multiple directions,” the premier said before adding that’s not unusual.

Poor roads, risk of fire

Holt listened as councillors pointed out that Rte. 940 is already in poor condition even before the arrival of the heavy trucks and equipment that would be needed to build the gas plant.

She also listened and took notes, but did not respond when Councillor LeBlanc spoke about potential fire risks.

“I’m wondering I guess what idea you may have of resources that Tantramar has readily available to fight say, a forest fire that breaks out from these 10 turbines that are going in the middle of the woods?” LeBlanc asked.

“We are just rebuilding our fire department now in our municipality and actually going through a job posting of a full-time fire chief. So I’m wondering what incentive would the province maybe have to prepare for a gas plant in the middle of our woods if we have lack of resources now?” the councillor added.

Indigenous participation

Holt did respond to a question about whether there is any Indigenous partnership in the project.

“I believe that those negotiations continue to happen,” the premier said. “I haven’t heard of a final resolution to the commercial conversations that are happening there.”

After the meeting ended, she appeared to sidestep this question from The New Wark Times:

“NB Power is saying that an Indigenous partnership is not essential for the gas plant. What’s your view of that?”

“We’re doing a lot of work with First Nations communities around the province on a lot of different energy projects,” Holt said as she walked briskly toward her government vehicle and pulled several times at its locked door before it finally opened.

“It’s been a priority for us to restore those relationships and we’re advancing more wind projects with First Nations than New Brunswick has ever seen,” she added as she climbed into the passenger seat.

“I think we’re up to 600 megawatts, so it’s something our government is really driving,” she said before closing the van’s door.

Premier Holt talked to anti-gas plant activists briefly as she entered and left Tantramar Town Hall. L-R back row: Peter Higham, Harold Popma, Phyllis Wheaton. L-R front row: Meredith Fisher, Logan Atkinson, Barb Clayton, Terry Jones

This is the first of three reports on Tantramar council’s meeting with Premier Holt. Warktimes was able to attend the meeting after Holt said she had no objection because this was council’s meeting and it was up to them to decide who could attend.

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

Commentary: The tricky world of misrepresentation — gas plant edition

Posted on August 17, 2026 by brucewark

By Logan Atkinson, Seniors for Climate — Tantramar

Pixabay Pinocchio image created by iffany

Children have a wonderfully efficient way of getting to the heart of the matter.  “Liar! Liar! Pants on fire!” If a peer steps outside the recognized moral order, then there’s no need for debate, reflection, appeals and counter-appeals. Instead, the kids go directly to their own system of justice – chants, ridicule, humiliation and, ultimately, banishment to the far reaches of the playground.

Rough justice? Perhaps. But effective?  Almost certainly.

In the world of adult discourse, however, to accuse someone of lying is a business fraught with risk. Instead, we tend towards “misrepresentation” as the safer accusation.  After all, a statement might be made innocently, without knowledge that it’s untrue.  Perhaps it’s made negligently, made without checking the facts carefully enough. Or, in some cases, a misrepresentation might be fraudulent, made with the intent to deceive and to exact some advantage.

This last is the lie.

For over a year now, the proponents (NB Power and PROENERGY) of the Centre Village fossil-fuel plant in Tantramar have been accused of misrepresentation by members of the public fighting against the project. The subjects of concern have been many: water usage, operating times, the need for more power, emissions levels, the economic implications.  And on and on.

Are the alleged misrepresentations innocent? Are they negligent? Or are they lies, made with the intent to deceive the public and to exact some advantage, perhaps support for the project among citizens-at-large?

Indigenous investment claim

At the beginning, the Centre Village project proponents claimed that they had secured an equity investment from Indigenous investors. This is important and merits greater scrutiny. We can start with the proponents’ filing with the New Brunswick environmental impact assessment agency, dated July 4, 2025.

 In section 2 on page 4, you will see the following representation:

For this Project, WattBridge [one of PROENERGY’s related companies], together with the North Shore Mi’kmaq Tribal Council (NSMTC) as a minority equity holder, is entering into a power purchase tolling agreement with NB Power.

There it is, in black and white. The proponent is holding out to the provincial regulator, and to the public, that the NSMTC has invested in the project.

The proponents were required to file something similar with the federal Impact Assessment Agency of Canada. This document is also dated July 4, 2025, and in section 2, page 1, it says:

For this Project, WattBridge, together with the NSMTC, is entering into a power purchase tolling agreement with NB Power.

It’s less clear here that NSMTC is represented as an equity investor in the Project, although that’s safe to assume given that NSMTC is being held out as a signatory to the tolling agreement.

But any ambiguity is removed further along, in section 4 on page 4, where we find this:

WattBridge will also continue to engage NSMTC as a minor equity partner in the Project.

Public info sessions

To this point at least, there’s nothing to suggest that the representation of Indigenous investment in the Centre Village project is a misrepresentation. But then proponents held two public information sessions in Tantramar, the first at the Music Barn in Upper Sackville on August 12, 2025, and the second at the Civic Centre in Sackville on August 13th.

One of the display panels at the first public meeting clearly indicated that the North Shore Mi’kmaq Tribal Council was an equity participant, an investor, in the project.

When pressed by a small group of observers (I was a participant in the conversation), however, Tristan Jackson (speaking for the investment advisors to the NSMTC) admitted that no investment had actually been made. Instead, the NSMTC had a mere option to acquire an equity position, an option that had not yet been exercised. Turns out that the representation to the provincial and federal regulators, and then on the panel during the public information session, was actually a misrepresentation.

Innocent? Negligent?  Fraudulent? Are we yet to the point of “pants on fire?”

At the second public information session, the same display panel appeared, with the same misrepresentation of Indigenous investment. I pointed this out to Mr. Jackson, and asked why the panel hadn’t been corrected to reflect the true state of affairs. He merely smiled in response.

A question and answer session followed.  When pressed about the misrepresentation, John MacIsaac (speaking for PROENERGY) said something to the effect that we can’t control what the media say about ownership of the project.  But it was pointed out to Mr. MacIsaac that the media are simply repeating what appears in the proponents’ own proposal to the environmental regulators.

After that, Mr. Jackson claimed that the proposal was written as it was (claiming a First Nations’ equity interest instead of the actual option) to make it easier to understand!

At this point, things are getting serious. Was this an admission that the misrepresentation was made with the knowledge that it was false? Are we slipping away from mere innocence or negligence? Is the possibility of fiery pants now too obvious to ignore?

A-G blows the whistle

In case additional evidence were needed about this misrepresentation, the New Brunswick’s Auditor General released his 2026 Annual Report in installments at the end of May and early in June. Volume 2 addressed the Centre Village project, and the misrepresentation about Indigenous investment was succinctly pointed out on page 15:

Then, a bit later in June, Lori Clark, President and CEO of NB Power, testified before the Public Accounts Committee at the New Brunswick legislature, and appeared to deflect responsibility for the misrepresentation back to PROENERGY.

All doubt was removed when Brad Coady, a Vice-President of NB Power, was interviewed following his appearance at Tantramar Municipal Council on July 14th. Mr. Coady confirmed that no Indigenous investment had been made, and went even further, suggesting that such an investment is a nice-to-have, rather than a must-have. Indigenous communities have the opportunity to invest, he said, and that’s good enough.  There is no formal regulatory requirement that Indigenous investment be secured.

Maybe Mr. Coady is right. Maybe there’s nothing in the formal law to compel Indigenous partnership in a project like the proposed Centre Village fossil-fuel plant. But is formal law the only mechanism at work here?  Is formal law the only basis on which the project proponents might be judged? The evidence is very clear that the question of Indigenous investment in the project has been misrepresented from the very beginning.

Do we really want to play with the American firm PROENERGY, a firm that misrepresents a vital feature of its project, and then over months and months of scrutiny fails to own up to that misrepresentation? Do you think that this misrepresentation is innocent?  Negligent?  Something worse?

What would the children on the playground say?

How loud might the chants become?

How might they judge the behaviour of PROENERGY?

Do you think PROENERGY would be banished to the farthest reaches of the playground?

Logan Atkinson is a member of Seniors for Climate — Tantramar, scantantramar@gmail.com

Posted in Commentary, Indigenous affairs, NB Power, Town of Tantramar | Tagged , | 8 Comments

‘Do your job’: Federal minister pressed to review Centre Village gas plant

Posted on August 14, 2026 by brucewark

Barry Rothfuss speaking at a  rally against the proposed gas plant on Rte. 940 in May

The executive director of the Atlantic Wildlife Institute is renewing his call for federal Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin to order a comprehensive review of the proposed 500 MW gas/diesel plant near Centre Village.

“We’re asking her to do her job,” Barry Rothfuss said Thursday during a telephone interview.

“Right now, we have, in my view, an illegal environmental assessment taking place in the province of New Brunswick,” he added.

“The province does not have any jurisdiction in transboundary issues like this. It is purely federal jurisdiction here,” said Rothfuss who also speaks for the Protect the Chignecto Isthmus Coalition that includes more than two-dozen organizations opposed to the gas plant.

In September 2025, the federal Impact Assessment Agency of Canada (IAAC) concluded that no further review of the project was needed even though the agency had received 270 public comments raising concerns about the gas plant’s potential effects on wildlife, human health and the environment.

Health effects

Rothfuss says the IAAC decision came before PROENERGY, the American company that would build and operate the plant, released a health study showing that emissions from the gas plant would directly affect Amherst and the areas around it in Cumberland County.

He points to a table showing levels of nitrogen dioxide that are nearly three times higher than federal air quality standards and levels of fine particulate matter or microscopic soot particles that also exceed federal standards.

Federal Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin. Photo: House of Commons

According to Health Canada, long-term exposure to low levels of nitrogen dioxide can increase the risks for breathing problems that include coughing and wheezing while worsening the effects of asthma, airborne allergies and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Health Canada also warns that fine particulate matter is most dangerous for children with asthma, older adults or people with underlying breathing or heart problems.

“These are their own figures I’m referring to,” Rothfuss says about the health study that PROENERGY commissioned.

He adds that the current environmental impact assessment (EIA) that New Brunswick is conducting stops at the provincial border.

“Only the federal government has the authority to deal with this from both sides of the border and so it’s critical to protect people’s welfare by making sure that the system represents the interests of the communities on either side.”

Water dangers

Rothfuss says PROENERGY’s extraction of water from a wellfield that may be shared between the provinces could also cause problems in Amherst where the town has spent millions upgrading its water systems since 2018.

“Yes, they’re going down below the actual wellfield and pulling the brackish water from beneath it, but that creates a lot of concerns in dealing with contamination and other things into the well table,” Rothfuss says.

“On top of that, they’re pulling out the brackish water and then treating it through a reverse osmosis system once they get it out of the ground.”

Last month, NB Power Vice President Brad Coady told Tantramar council that PROENERGY is now planning to truck the wastewater from the site, possibly to a disposal facility in Halifax.

“This is a very dangerous contaminant byproduct that is going to be produced on virtually a daily basis,” Rothfuss says.

“It means that these contaminant trucks are going to be moving out of the gas plant and down our road systems and potentially into Nova Scotia road systems as well and that creates an unprecedented type of hazard to our community,” he adds.

“It’s not only that the material could potentially spill,” he says, “but you’re also going to have heavy truck movement continuously through the area and it’s going to wear on our roads.”

Indigenous issues

In addition to potential health and water effects in Nova Scotia, Rothfuss points to the lack of consultation with Indigenous communities.

Liberal MP and cabinet minister Dominic LeBlanc

“We are impacting Mi’kmaq territorial rights on the Nova Scotia side of the border,” he says. “They have the same rights on that side of the border as we have on this side of the border and both communities have to be brought to the table here. In that particular sense, this is clearly not a one-province issue, it’s a transboundary issue.”

On August 10th, Rothfuss e-mailed a detailed letter calling on Beauséjour’s member of Parliament Dominic LeBlanc to review the evidence and co-ordinate with the federal environment minister to order a comprehensive review of the gas plant project.

The letter suggests that if the federal government fails to honour its constitutional obligations to review transboundary health and environmental issues as well as its duty to consult Indigenous communities, Protect the Chignecto Isthmus Coalition could take the matter to the Federal Court of Canada for judicial review.

“In this particular instance, their legal responsibility is clear,” Rothfuss says. “This is their jurisdiction, and they’re choosing to ignore it, they’re choosing to turn a blind eye.”

Federal reaction

Samantha Bayard, a spokesperson for federal Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin responded to a Warktimes e-mail seeking the minister’s comments saying the request “is best suited to our colleagues at Impact Assessment Agency of Canada (IAAC).”

Anna Pittas, a media relations officer with IAAC wrote that “federal impact assessments are limited to major projects that are likely to have adverse effects in federal jurisdiction as defined in the Impact Assessment Act.”

She added that the IAAC’s assessment last year concluded that no further assessment was needed and the effects of the project within federal jurisdiction “would be limited or addressed through existing federal and provincial legislative and regulatory frameworks.”

She also sent a link to the IAAC decision last September.

Gabriel Brunet, senior communications advisor to Beauséjour MP Dominic LeBlanc said Chris Zhou, director of communications for Environment Minister Dabrusin would respond to Warktimes’s request for comment.

Zhou e-mailed to say that the comment from the IAAC (see above) would be the response.

To read CHMA coverage of this story, click here.

Posted in Environment, Indigenous affairs, NB Power, Town of Tantramar | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Backgrounder: What does the future hold for Tantramar’s volunteer fire departments?

Posted on August 9, 2026 by brucewark

So, it’s official: Tantramar is looking for a new chief to head Sackville Fire & Rescue.

The ad posted on the town’s website last week indicated the job would pay between $73,860 and $98,480.

It also said the new chief would report to Dan Dupuis, the newly appointed director of protective services.

Dupuis’ duties include overseeing all three of Tantramar’s fire departments as well as Becky Goodwin, the newly appointed Tantramar fire service manager of people & culture, the town’s bylaw officer and whoever is in charge of animal control.

The volunteers, who actually fight the fires, were represented on the job posting in light blue boxes at the bottom of the fire service hierarchy.

Dupuis and Goodwin are full-time employees and the new chief will be as well while the firefighters themselves will officially remain light-blue-box, honorary-pay-earning, volunteers.

Sharp decline in volunteers

How long this can continue is anyone’s guess, especially these days with the prospect of fighting more frequent fires in the era of climate change. That combined with the requirement for hundreds of hours of advanced, professional training and a commitment to be on-call 24/7 are discouraging factors for potential recruits.

The steady decline in volunteers for Sackville Fire & Rescue may have been due to how successive mayors, CAOs and many councillors ignored the documented evidence of favouritism, bullying and sexism some firefighters endured.

But, it may also be partly due to the physical dangers and health risks of an especially demanding job.

In 2022, the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs appealed to the federal government on behalf of the dwindling numbers of volunteers for a more generous firefighter income tax credit. The Association’s brief sounded the alarm about the chronic shortage of volunteers who made up 85% of all firefighters in Canada:

“CTV’s W5 began its 57th Investigative reporting season last week with “Under Fire: Fewer firefighters mean slower response times, jeopardizing lives”. The story was heartbreaking, and to some shocking. However, the shortage of volunteer firefighters is not news to us. Our data show a drop from 126,000 in 2016 to 100,000 in 2021. About 32% of volunteer firefighters are over the age of 50 with over 15,000 vacancies. Our numbers are shrinking. All hazard response needs are increasing.”

To read more about the chronic shortage of volunteers and the Association’s successful campaign for more generous income tax breaks, click here.

To read previous Warktimes coverage about the shortage of volunteers that includes local participation in the CTV W5 program, click here.

New approach for Tantramar?

Since municipal amalgamation in 2023, Tantramar’s three volunteer fire departments have remained separate units that work together as needed.

Now that a new director of protective services has been hired to oversee all three, it may be time to ask this question:

How can Tantramar turn three volunteer departments into a professionally managed municipal fire service while preserving volunteers as an essential part of its operations in three separate locations?

Some municipalities have partially answered that question by hiring full-time career firefighters backed up by many more volunteers.

The newly amalgmated town of St. Stephen has a blend of full-time career firefighters backed up by volunteers in its “composite” fire dept. Photo: Facebook

The town of St. Stephen, for example, has a composite fire department that consists of six career firefighters and about 24 volunteers.

“The six career firefighters include the Chief, four driver dispatchers, and one firefighter,” says a note on its fire department webpage.

“Four of our career firefighters also act as volunteer firefighters on their days off…Each night, two volunteer firefighters sleep in the station, allowing for a rapid response during the overnight hours.”

Note: (1) After the province forced the amalgamation of St. Stephen and seven surrounding local service districts in 2023, members of the Oak Bay fire department resigned in protest because of what they saw as poor communication and a “hostile takeover.” The incident shows the importance of respecting geography, local traditions and history as Tantramar does by maintaining its three separate units.

(2) The newly amalgamated town of St. Stephen says it has 8,100 residents while Tantramar has about 10,255. Tantramar has a far larger area to cover, hence the need for three fire stations.

(3) Property tax rates are higher in St. Stephen’s downtown area at $1.5561 per $100 of assessment while the rates in Sackville and Dorchester are $1.5350. At the same time however, St. Stephen’s municipal rates are lower in its rural areas: $0.5597 vs. Tantramar’s municipal rates of $0.7411 (former Dorchester LSD); $0.8552 (Pointe de Bute) and $0.6625 (former Sackville LSD).

Other municipalities

Amherst is another example of composite fire service that combines full-time and casual staff with a large number of volunteers. Photo: Amherst Firefighters Association

Woodstock and Riverview are examples of other New Brunswick municipalities that combine career firefighters with volunteers.

Woodstock has five permanent dispatcher/pump operators plus 26 volunteers, while Riverview employs a chief, two deputy chiefs, four captain/paramedics, four lieutenant/paramedics, one training officer, 16 firefighters/paramedics and an administrative assistant supported by 28 volunteers.

Oromocto with a population of about 9,045 residents also has a composite fire department with three chief officers, 16 full-time firefighters, four part-time firefighters and 30 volunteers.

A note on its website says: “The Oromocto Fire Department is staffed 24 hours a day by a minimum of four career firefighters. The career firefighters work a trail, 24-hour rotation in a four platoon system and respond to all calls. If additional resources are required, the volunteer firefighters are paged-out and respond on the trucks that are needed.”

In Amherst, the fire department has eight full-time staff, five casual staff and more than 50 volunteers to serve a population of about 9,400 residents.

Detailed study needed

Tantramar Town Council could commission an independent study of response times over a five-year period before deciding how many, if any, career firefighters to hire.

The study would examine response data for each of the three departments including when calls occurred, how long before equipment was deployed, how many qualified firefighters responded, when they arrived on the scene, and how those figures varied by hour, weekday/weekend and station.

Council could also adopt explicit targets on how quickly an initial crew should arrive in Sackville/Dorchester versus more remote rural areas and how many firefighters should be assembled within 10, 15 or 20 minutes.

Tantramar has already begun professionalizing its fire service from the top. The question council may soon have to confront is whether that should stop with the people who manage the service — or extend to some of those who actually answer the calls.

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

Warktimes releases secret Montana recommendations on Sackville Fire & Rescue

Posted on August 1, 2026 by brucewark

Warktimes has obtained a copy of what appear to be the 20 recommendations issued by Montana Consulting Group following its 2021 workplace assessment of Sackville Fire & Rescue and, after careful consideration, has decided to publish them in the public interest.

Although the document does not contain a Montana Consulting letterhead or signature page, its contents closely correspond with the list of implemented actions released by Tantramar CAO Jennifer Borne in April.

The decision to publish the recommendations comes after five years of turmoil within the fire department including the departure of numerous firefighters and a renewed crisis on January 5th when 12 volunteers turned in their pagers, prompting the municipality to launch another workplace investigation.

Publishing the recommendations gives citizens the opportunity to judge for themselves whether the reforms proposed in 2021 were adequate to address the problems inside the department and whether greater public scrutiny could have helped prevent the crisis from continuing.

It also raises a broader question about transparency: why were recommendations dealing largely with governance, hiring practices, supervision, workplace procedures and accountability treated as confidential personnel information and withheld under New Brunswick’s Right to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (RTIPPA)?

Judicial decision

In April 2024, Mr. Justice Jean-Paul Ouellette of the Court of King’s Bench upheld Tantramar’s refusal to release the Montana report under RTIPPA, accepting the municipality’s argument that confidentiality is needed to protect the integrity of workplace investigations.

Warktimes is not publishing witness statements, allegations, interview notes or the workplace assessment itself. The document being released consists of the recommendations arising from that assessment. They focus mainly on changes to fire department governance, policies, procedures and accountability measures.

If those recommendations had been made public in 2021, residents, councillors and the media would have been able to monitor whether recommended reforms were actually carried out as additional firefighters continued to leave the department.

Once again, the town has classified the latest investigation by VanBuskirk Law as a personnel matter, and once again, that report and its recommendations are being withheld from the public.

Earlier this month, Councillor Alyssa Greene served notice that at a future council meeting she will introduce a motion directing CAO Jennifer Borne to disclose the VanBuskirk report to council and to prepare a comprehensive summary of its findings for the public.

The town argues that a section of RTIPPA prevents the release of personnel investigations, but the CBC is currently challenging the law on the grounds that it violates Canada’s Charter of Rights.

To read the 20 Montana recommendations, click here.

To read my earlier analysis of how many of the recommendations have been implemented, click here.

To read about the CBC’s case seeking to strike down Sections 20 and 21 of RTIPPA as unconstitutional, click here.

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

Commentary: NB Power’s ‘Opposites Day’

Posted on July 30, 2026 by brucewark

by Logan Atkinson, Seniors for Climate Tantramar

Logan Atkinson, Seniors for Climate Tantramar

Fans of Sesame Street will recall the iconic video “Opposites Day,” in which Bert and Ernie learn all about opposites.

Whatever they do, the reverse is intended.  Whatever they say, the opposite is meant.

Hilarious for adults, educational for  kids.

In a stark example of life imitates art, members of Tantramar town council and residents who packed the chamber were treated recently to their own version of Opposites Day, as NB Power’s Chief Commercial Officer Brad Coady and his entourage appeared before town council on July 14th.

The ostensible purpose?  To demonstrate transparency about the proposed 500 MW fossil-fuel power generating plant for Centre Village, to be built, owned and operated by the American firm PROENERGY.

But the result?  Obscurity, unintelligibility, obfuscation.

Opposites Day indeed.

Mr. Coady presented to council for about 12 minutes, supported by a series of PowerPoint slides, and then seemed to artfully dodge a series of questions.

Did he enhance transparency in connection with the Centre Village proposal?  Did he say anything at all to inform council and the public about this dangerous project?  Or did he leave all of us more confused, more skeptical, than before?

Many examples might be cited to support the argument that the NB Power VP seemed more interested in obfuscation than in enlightenment.

In one case, he repeated the oft-quoted claim that the big, jet-engine turbines would operate only 7% of the time, apparently intending to ease our concerns about the combustion of fossil fuels, the poisoning of our climate, and the degradation of the delicate ecology of the Chignecto Isthmus.

Does this claim make any sense?  Does it not strain credulity to suggest that a project whose costs approach $3.5 billion will lie idle 93% of the time?

NS connection

And what about the commitment to sell 100 MW of power to Nova Scotia, a commitment revealed to New Brunswick’s Energy and Utilities Board and the public on February 2nd.

 If the Independent Electricity System Operator in Nova Scotia exercises its option to draw this power from New Brunswick, what effect would that have on the operation of the Centre Village plant?

Does this not give the lie to NB Power’s claim that the Centre Village plant is necessary only to meet crises of peak demand in New Brunswick?  Will our friends in Nova Scotia accept mere intermittent supply, or will they insist on a steady, reliable source of needed power?

NB Power VP Brad Coady

Mr. Coady is quite agile at deflection.  At one point in his presentation, he said that the Centre Village plant “…has something called a synchronous condenser capability, and that’s essential for integrating renewable energy.”

This statement, one can only assume, is meant to boost the claim that the Centre Village project would be a transitional resource, helping New Brunswick move away from fossil fuel combustion and toward a more fully renewable energy future.

But Mr. Coady’s logic here is suspect, at best.  The clear implication of his words? Because we have synchronous condenser capability, you ought to believe us when we say that this plant is intended for transitional purposes only.

But the truth is that synchronous condenser capability is required by any addition of renewables to the grid; it is not logical to package it with a 25-year commitment to an American company to burn fossil fuels.

And so the deflection is on – please think of the synchronous condenser; please don’t think about fossil fuel combustion.

What about BESS?

One of the strikingly less expensive and increasingly available alternatives to fossil fuel peaker plants is battery storage, known as BESS (Battery Energy Storage Systems).  See the very successful Oneida Energy Storage Project in Ontario, operating reliably since May 2025.

At the Tantramar council meeting, Mr. Coady said NB Power has a lot of interest in BESS, but that it’s hard to make a business case for it to the EUB.

While this may at one point have been true, it is certainly no longer the case.  As reported by CBC News on March 18th, a BESS facility would be far less expensive and more reliable than a peaker plant. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/nrstor-large-scale-battery-replace-tantramar-gas-plant-9.7131768

And in addition, it would provide these advantages without dangerous emissions, and without the heightened risks of exorbitant health and environmental costs.  Much evidence to this effect was led by the highly qualified intervenors at the EUB hearings on the Centre Village project.  And the Oneida Project in Ontario is living proof that it can be done.

“Transparency” or “Opposites Day” obfuscation?

NB Premier Holt

On July 22nd, CBC News quoted Premier Holt at the Charlottetown Premiers’ conference as saying that New Brunswick ought to be considered as the energy hub of the Maritimes. https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.7279906

An admirable ambition, but one that ought to be realized by the progressive development of clean, renewable energy supported by battery storage.  This is not an ambition to be anchored in aging, dangerous, dirty technology from the last century that will harm our environment in every way at radical expense to New Brunswickers for decades to come.

Operating merely 7% of the time?  Unbelievable.  Synchronous condenser capability to give us all some comfort?  Deflection from the real dangers of the project.  Batteries too expensive?  Contrary to all available evidence.

It’s become quite fashionable these days for corporate leaders and politicians to claim transparency, to promise transparency, to insist that they are committed to transparency.

But are these claims and promises real?  Or are deflection and obscurity what the public is expected to suffer in the name of openness?

Transparency, or obfuscation?  There may have been something educational for youngsters about Tantramar’s own version of Opposites Day, but is there anything hilarious there for the rest of us?

No. Not so much.

Logan Atkinson is a resident of Tantramar and a member of the Seniors for Climate Tantramar Steering Committee. scantantramar@gmail.com

Posted in Commentary, Environment, NB Power, Town of Tantramar | Tagged | 2 Comments

‘An enormous relief’: Province to build temporary detour bridge at Pecks Cove

Posted on July 29, 2026 by brucewark

Lower Rockport resident Crow Robichaud at the Pecks Cove Bridge where recent 16 tonne weight restrictions are preventing fire trucks from reaching her community

Lower Rockport resident Crow Robichaud says she’s pleased that the provincial department of transportation and infrastructure (DTI) has announced plans to construct a temporary detour bridge so that fire trucks will be able to cross into her community.

She says the 10 full-time residents in her area are currently facing a public safety nightmare because the province has imposed new 16 tonne weight restrictions that prevent fire trucks from crossing the Pecks Cove Bridge.

In a statement e-mailed to Warktimes Wednesday, DTI explains that the decision to change the weight restriction last month from 20 tonnes to 16 was made to ensure that the bridge can operate safely until it is replaced.

“While no repairs are currently planned for the structure, a detour bridge is planned for construction next to the existing bridge before the end of 2026,” the DTI statement says.

“It will be an enormous relief for the residents when we have full fire protection services,” Robichaud writes in a message to Warktimes.

During an interview Tuesday before the DTI announcement, she explained why she feels current fire services are inadequate.

“We have a Band-Aid solution that they can get some men and women across the bridge in a smaller vehicle and some water storage on a local property sort of midway in Rockport and Lower Rockport,” she said.

Tantramar has provided three storage tanks containing 3,000 litres of water to fight fires on the other side of the Pecks Cove Bridge. Photo: Crow Robichaud

Robichaud predicts the gravel road on the far side of the bridge will soon start deteriorating because heavy graders can’t cross to maintain it.

“What happens if there’s an auto accident down there and they can’t get the fire truck across with the jaws of life?” she asks.

Aside from safety concerns, Robichaud says the Pecks Cove Bridge can’t handle the weight of trucks that pump septic tanks, deliver hay to a local farmer or firewood to local residents.

“So, it’s affecting a lot of people in many different ways,” she says.

“And you know, we have no other route out.”

Tantramar MLA Megan Mitton, who has been pressing the government over several years to fix the bridge, says she’s relieved to hear about plans for a detour bridge this year.

“This is a public safety issue,” she writes in an e-mail to Warktimes.

“I’m glad DTI has finally understood the urgency that I’ve been communicating to them, and provided some more detail on how they will respond.”

Tantramar Mayor Debbie Wiggins-Colwell describes DTI’s announcement as “very good news.”

She adds it would be a lot better if construction were to begin sooner on a permanent bridge.

“But we’ll take what we can get as long as the community is safe,” she says.

Earlier this week, Wiggins-Colwell wrote to DTI Minister Chuck Chiasson requesting provincial action on the Pecks Cove Bridge.

To read her letter, click here.

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

Tantramar awards $895,000 contract for Civic Centre elevator

Posted on July 26, 2026 by brucewark

Councillor Alyssa Greene raised questions about the elevator

Tantramar Town Council has voted unanimously to award an $895,000 contract for the installation of an elevator at the Tantramar Veterans Memorial Civic Centre.

“I feel this is a very important project and I feel the price is only going to go up if we delay it,” said Councillor Barry Hicks as he moved the motion on July 14th to award the contract to Maxim Construction, an employee-owned company with offices in Dartmouth and Saint John.

The other bid for the project, from Avant Garde Construction and Management of Dieppe, came in more than $41,000 higher at $936,390.

Before the vote, Councillor Alyssa Greene said she would support awarding the contract, but questioned why the town issued tenders excluding the option of installing a cheaper “limited-use/limited-application” LULA lift inside the building.

A LULA elevator has been described as a combination of a small commercial elevator and a wheelchair lift.

“It’s designed to be installed in low-rise buildings, particularly municipal buildings of two to three floors [and] has a lower footprint,” Greene said.

She referred to the previous council’s request for options, but added that the request for proposals issued to elevator companies said the project consisted of design and construction of a new elevator attached to the existing building.

“That would preclude designs that would have the LULA-lift that would be inside,” she said, adding that the town had removed opportunities for a lesser-cost option inside the building that would help people with disabilities.

‘Lowest-cost option’

Andrew Amos of Catalyst Consulting Engineers

Andrew Amos of Catalyst Consulting Engineers, who served as the town’s consultant on the elevator project, said that both companies told him during on-site inspections that the exterior elevator was the lowest-cost option.

Amos added that in his experience, a LULA lift would save up to $150,000.

“However, looking over the life span, we tend to find that those lifts are much more maintenance intensive, harder to get parts, fewer technicians that are qualified to work on them and they tend to be down a lot more and user satisfaction decreases tremendously.”

He said neither of the bidders suggested the LULA-type elevator.

“They felt that the standard elevator would give us the best investment over a 25-year investment horizon,” he added.

“It would be the lowest cost versus other options.”

In his written report to council, Jamie Ferguson, manager of active living and culture noted that the elevator was not included in the 2026 capital budget, but the $50,000 that Tantramar won this year in the Kraft Hockeyville award would help support the project.

To read Ferguson’s report including various questions raised by Councillor Greene, click here.

Posted in Town of Tantramar | Tagged , | 1 Comment

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 , | 3 Comments