Master of ceremonies Garth Zwicker handed out two delectable prizes at this year’s veterans banner unveiling
“I thought I’d start off with a couple of door prizes,” Garth Zwicker said as he kicked off this year’s ceremony for the unveiling of 10 more military veterans’ street banners.
“You’ve got to be quick and you’ve got to know your stuff,” he warned the 65 people in attendance, adding that hundreds of pounds of a certain product were supplied to troops during World War II.
“Lobster?” someone called out. “Sugar?” “Rum?”
“OK, I’ll give you a hint. It’s not an unwanted message on your computer,” Zwicker said.
“Spam,” called out Logan Atkinson, past president of Tantramar Heritage Trust who won himself a shiny can of the luncheon meat and then a couple of minutes later, a box of Kraft Dinner, apparently another staple of military rations “but not necessarily in the same format,” Zwicker explained.
“So, we all know what Logan Atkinson is having for supper,” he said before thanking Graham Mesheau for designing the banners and the town for putting them up on street poles in Sackville and Dorchester every year.
Book of banners
Zwicker announced that, aside from unveiling the street banners this year, he was inviting people to pre-order a book he had compiled containing about 250 banners along with the family stories that go with them.
The book will be available later this fall. To pre-order it, click here.
The $35 book, published by Tantramar Heritage Trust, is expected to be launched in November.
One of the stories in the book is about the late Harold Johnson who served in the Royal Canadian Navy for 11 years and for three in the Royal Canadian Engineers.
“He joined in 1957,” said his wife Eleanor who attended this year’s banner ceremony with her nephew Lee from Alberta.
“Harold served on both coasts, BC and Halifax,” she said, adding that serving in the navy gave him the chance to see the world.
“He was to Australia and Fiji and New Zealand, Hawaii, Great Britain, all over the world,” she said.
“Then he became a truck driver after that.”
“I joined him in 1995 when I got my trucker’s license. We drove in all 10 Canadian provinces and in 46 of the 48 continental United States,” she added.
They were living in Sackville where she grew up when Harold Johnson died of cancer on June 3rd, 2025.
“It was just five days shy of our 41st wedding anniversary,” Eleanor said sadly.
Eleanor Johnson attended the unveiling of her husband’s veterans memorial banner with her nephew Lee Johnson
Trained boxer
The Belliveau brothers, Rod and twins Mark and Marcel attended the ceremony to witness the unveiling of their uncle Raymond Martin’s banner.
“He served in the 3rd Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment,” Rod said.
“He was the son of my grandmother and grandfather, Henry and Lil Martin of Mount Whatley and Aulac,” he added.
“He served mainly throughout the Cold War and did tours in Cyprus and Germany.”
Belliveau said his uncle was underage, actually only about 16 when he enlisted and that the military stretched things to let him in because they needed a trained boxer for regiment competitions.
“In fact, Bob Edgett trained him,” he said, adding his uncle won championships competing against the British army.
“He’s named after our great uncle, Raymond Ashe, who is from Springhill,” said Mark Belliveau.
“Raymond Ashe died in the Allied invasion of Sicily in the Second World War and there’s a plaque honouring him at Monte Cassino Cemetery in Italy.”
He added that his uncle Raymond Martin was working for a manufacturing company in London, Ontario when he died in an industrial accident in 1992.
“I was actually serving overseas, in Africa in the Congo at the time, or Zaire when I got the notice that he was killed,” Mark said.
Rod said he and his brothers served in C Squadron of the 8th Canadian Hussars (Princess Louise’s) based for many years in Sackville.
“Our cousin Greg Martin, was a sergeant major who was part of town council some years ago, and was one of the people that swore my twin brothers into the squadron, into the regiment,” he said.
The Belliveau brothers witnessed the unveiling of their uncle Raymond’s banner. L-R: Mark, Rod and Marcel Belliveau
Banner history
Garth Zwicker says he began thinking about installing street banners back in 2015 and the first ones went up the next year.
“The project has gone from 16 banners in the first year and then we went to 38 and we thought we were done,” he says.
“Then we went to 75 and 100 and 125 and 150,” he adds.
“Nobody ever expected it to hit that number.”
“There are almost 250 banners now,” Zwicker says.
“Each banner tells a story and represents sacrifice, courage and dedication,” Tantramar Mayor Debbie Wiggins-Colwell told the families attending the unveiling ceremony.
“It’s more than a display of banners. It’s a lasting commitment to remembering the men and women who served our country.”
Delicious door prize dinner
Tantramar Heritage Trust Past President Logan Atkinson displays the delicious ingredients he won for Saturday night’s supper. Sadly, Warktimes was not invited to partake in that feast
Commentary: No Madam Mayor, we’re not dead yet
by Logan Atkinson, Seniors for Climate Tantramar
Tantramar Mayor Debbie Wiggins-Colwell wearing her chain of office
Whatever you may think about municipal politics and local politicians, it’s hard to argue that Tantramar’s new mayor and council have been sitting on their hands.
Finally, it seems, we’re working towards a solution to the problems that have plagued Sackville Fire & Rescue. At long last, the province has promised to replace the Peck’s Cove Bridge in Rockport, and it appears as though a citizen’s committee will soon be struck to recommend what to do about the Wheaton Covered Bridge.
And while the premier was invited to visit Tantramar for months and months, it took our new mayor and council to get her here to listen to their, and our, concerns. Great!
But, oh, now this!
Mayor Wiggins-Colwell’s Facebook post just a couple of hours after the province announced its approval of the Centre Village Gas Plant has raised urgent questions about how committed this council is to the well-being of our community.
To say her post was disappointing is a gross understatement.
It was uncaring, dismissive and patronizing, and may finally demonstrate what many of us have believed all along – that our municipal politicians simply do not understand the perils posed by the NB Power/ PROENERGY gas plant.
In a nutshell, Mayor Wiggins-Colwell said that we must now roll over, accept the gas plant, believe blindly that the province had our best interests at heart by approving it with certain conditions and that besides, such matters fall outside the town’s jurisdiction.
So in response, let me say this loud and clear: No, Madam Mayor. We’re not about to roll over and we’re not dead yet. Not even close.
Let’s go through her post point by point.
First: “On behalf of Council…” she begins. What does that mean really? Where does the mayor get the authority to make public pronouncements on behalf of council? Any deliberative body requires a resolution to authorize the senior officer to speak on behalf of it.
So, where is the resolution? And when was the public meeting that passed it?
We’d like to see a poll. How many members of council agree with the mayor’s statement?
Second: the mayor’s statement says: “…we recognize the significant public interest” in the gas plant project.
No kidding.
Of course there is significant public interest in this brainless project. The Centre Village gas plant is the most consequential proposal to come forward to this community in generations. If built, it would change just about everything about life on the Chignecto Isthmus, for many generations and maybe irrevocably, for humans, for plant life, for birds and animals.
Significant public interest?” We’re not talking about a dog park here.
Third: “…our residents hold a range of perspectives on the project.”
Huh?
Why is this relevant? Is this mentioned as justification for not doing anything? Is the mayor saying “Our residents hold a range of perspectives, so therefore council can’t take a stand?”
But the council has already taken a stand by passing resolutions opposing the gas plant not once, but twice. Residents held a range of perspectives then, just as they do now.
Besides, there’s “a range of perspectives” on every issue that comes before council. A bylaw on open fires? A new dog park? A slaughterhouse in the industrial park? What about changing the Mixed Use Zone to allow seven stories in our downtown? Didn’t take long for that change to get approved, despite a demonstrated “range of perspectives.”
Every issue generates debate.
We elect our mayor and council to consider all viewpoints, determine the best interests of the community, and act accordingly. Their job is to show leadership.
Fourth: “…we must move forward with the expectation that all public concerns are reflected in the conditions” attached to the environmental approval.
Madam Mayor, have you read the conditions? Do you realize that many of them are mere window dressing, requiring PROENERGY to follow the law, for example, when of course, it’s required to follow the law in any case, whether it’s spelled out in a fancy list of conditions or not?
In the last 14 months, the arguments in favour of the gas plant have been thoroughly debunked by those of us resisting it.
We’ve enlisted economics experts, climate change experts, energy experts, ecologists, medical doctors, environmental scientists, lawyers. We’ve submitted bundles of documents to provincial officials refuting the proponents’ arguments, and in virtually every case we have received bland non-responses or none at all. Instead, NB Power, PROENERGY and provincial politicisns continue to trot out the same tired arguments, over and over, as if our arguments were never made or held no weight at all.
Have you read the list of conditions Madam Mayor? Have you considered how embarrassingly vague they are? How ambiguous? How jam-packed with the apparently unfettered discretion of bureaucrats in Fredericton who, so far at least, seem impervious to anything like logic, caring, or concern for our shared future?
I ask again: Have you really read them?
Fifth: “As the development moves forward, Council’s role is to consider matters that fall within municipal jurisdiction.”
This sounds so much like former Mayor Black’s position, publicly stated more than once, when he said words like “We have no levers to pull,” or just as limply, “We must stay in our lane.”
“As the development moves forward…?” No Madam Mayor, we’re not dead yet.
Councillor Butcher famously suggested at a council meeting that we can’t tell the province what do do, akin to a child telling a parent what to do or an employee telling the boss how to run the company.
Well, let’s get this on the table in the hope that any uncertainty about this subject can be removed: We know that the town is not in a position to veto the Centre Village gas plant. No one has asked council to do this. No one expects such a miracle.
But what do we expect? What is within council’s jurisdiction?
Section 5 of the Local Governance Act sets out the purposes of the municipality. Pretty basic stuff. The fundamentals. The genesis, really, of everything that’s done at our town hall. What does section 5 say?
It says that one purpose of the municipality is to foster the social and environmental well-being of its community. Notice use of the word “foster.” This is an active verb, it requires action, it suggests that the council must identify what is consistent with social and environmental well-being, and then take steps to achieve it.
This is not about passivity, it’s not about staying silent so as not to offend the boss. It’s about having a vision for the future, about the environmental and social well-being of the community, and then about developing a plan to actively foster that well-being.
But what to do if social and environmental well-being is jeopardized? What if the very purpose of the municipality is threatened by an outside force?
Don’t you fight with everything you have?
Don’t you pound your fist on the table and on the doors to the legislature?
Don’t you find every possible forum to advocate for the well-being of your constituents?
Don’t you demonstrate, over and over and over again, in solidarity with your constituents, that you recognize the threat, that you understand your responsibilities, that you will insist time after time that the well-being of your community must be protected and advanced?
Sixth: In her post, the mayor “…encourages residents to rely on official sources of information for updates regarding the process.” At every meeting of council, and in keeping with the meeting protocols set out in the Meeting Procedures By-Law, we sit on our hands, we leave our signs and banners at home, we keep our mouths shut. We are very patient, respectful of those who appear before council, deferential to the rulings of our municipal leadership.
But relying on official pronouncements for information on this debacle? Really? When all we’ve received so far through official channels is bafflegab, doublespeak and mumbofudge? Non-answers to our questions. Deflection. Disingenuous clap-trap.
Are we being encouraged to abandon the organizations we have consulted and recruited across the country on this crazy project? Many of Canada’s (and the world’s) leading thinkers on environmental health and climate change? Some of the top experts on energy economics? Many physicians and ecologists and environmental scientists? In favour of what? Are we being asked to trust the very authorities whose schemes would destroy the Chignecto Isthmus and the futures of our families along with it?
Did you really think this through Madam Mayor? Do you realize what you’re asking us to do?
No, Madam Mayor, we’re not dead yet.
The very essence of life in Tantramar is at stake here, to say nothing of the wider implications for the environment and climate change. The very essence of our community is in jeopardy.
If you don’t think this is something worth fighting for, something sufficiently important for each and every one of us to continue to raise our voices in opposition together, insistently and continuously, then I’m afraid we’ll understand why our municipal leaders avert their eyes when we meet them on the street.
Logan Atkinson, Seniors for Climate Tantramar scantantramar@gmail.com