Opponents vow ‘fight is not over’ after EUB approves gas plant

Posted on May 29, 2026 by brucewark

NB Power VP Brad Coady speaking to reporters during online news conference

NB Power Vice President Brad Coady says he understands that many people in Tantramar are angry about the utility’s plans for a 500 MW gas/diesel plant near Centre Village.

“I do sympathize with the anger and I commit that NB Power will continue our discussions with residents in the local area and throughout New Brunswick on what our energy future looks like,” Coady told reporters Thursday.

He spoke during an online news conference about an hour after the provincial Energy & Utilities Board announced it had approved the gas plant project as a financially sound investment that would help prevent power blackouts during periods of peak demand.

“I do want to emphasize that this approval today, while it’s important, isn’t the only approval for the project,” Coady said.

“We still have an outstanding environmental impact assessment (EIA) approval or determination that the proponent is required to get,” he added, referring to the U.S. company PROENERGY which would build and operate the gas plant for 25 years.

When asked for an update on the EIA approval process that the province is conducting, Coady replied that the prospects look good.

“My latest update, which came as early as this morning I might add, was that the proponent (PROENERGY) is on schedule to receive a favourable determination,” he said.

“All the work that they had to do for the regulator will be submitted by the end of day tomorrow, but I request that you ask the proponent for a more precise update than that.”

Future gas plants

Coady also told reporters that while NB Power has signed power purchase agreements for about 700 MW of wind in addition to the 400 MW that already exist, the utility also sees the need for additional fossil fuel turbines to meet power needs after 2030 along with battery storage systems and ways of managing demand.

He said NB Power is looking at sites across the province including the Scoudouc industrial park.

“It could be anywhere, including Scoudouc. More to come on that,” he said.

When asked about the EUB’s sharp criticism of NB Power for not filing documents to show the rationale for its investment in the gas plant project, Coady suggested the utility was following its rules for power purchase agreements which are not capital investments.

“All of our fuel purchases and all of our power purchase agreements follow a different track because these aren’t internal investment decisions by NB Power,” he said.

He added that NB Power is prepared to work with the EUB on how to handle the documentation for similar applications in the future.

‘Fight is not over’

Barry Rothfuss speaking at a recent rally against the proposed gas plant

“I’m obviously disappointed with the EUB decision,” says Barry Rothfuss, executive director of the Atlantic Wildlife Institute, which would be only 4.5 kilometres away from the gas plant.

Rossfuss is also one of the founders of the Coalition to Protect the Chignecto Isthmus (CPIC) which argued against the gas plant at the EUB hearings.

“The decision was not unexpected because the EUB was only looking at the prudency of economic expenditures and not looking at the actual prudency of this project in terms of its effects on the environment or public health,” Rothfuss says.

“When it pollutes, it pollutes dirty,” he adds. “There is no peaker plant that operates without public health risks, just do a Google search and you’ll see.”

Rothfuss says the CPIC will continue to fight against the gas plant echoing a message in its news release which suggests the Coalition may ask the courts to review the EUB decision.

“We are exploring all available legal options to ensure that this decision does not stand as the final word,” the release states.

“We remain committed to protecting the Chignecto Isthmus, its people, its wildlife, and the generations of human beings not yet born who will live with the consequences of what is decided in rooms like this one. The fight is not over.”

NB Power ‘rushing’ gas plant

CCNB’s Moe Qureshi speaking during EUB hearings

Meantime, the Conservation Council of New Brunswick, which also opposed the gas plant during EUB hearings, says approval of the project means New Brunswickers will be stuck paying costly bills.

“The decision will expose residents to higher power bills, more pollution, and decades of dependence on fossil fuels,” says Moe Qureshi, CCNB director of climate research in a news release issued shortly after the EUB decision.

The release says the plant would be one of the province’s top polluters producing toxins linked to cancer and respiratory diseases.

It accuses NB Power of failing to consider more efficient and cost-effective options such as battery energy storage systems while rushing ahead with the gas plant project to avoid stricter controls on carbon dioxide emissions.

“The federal government published the Clean Electricity Regulations (CER) in 2025, which limit the CO2 emissions fossil fuel generators can produce,” the CCNB release states.

“Planned units that have started construction by 2027, however, will not be subjected to the CER until 2050. That means this plant could avoid stricter emissions requirements for decades.”

EUB avoids blame

Jim Emberger, anti-Shale Gas Alliance. Photo: Deborah Carr

In an e-mail to Warktimes, Jim Emberger of the New Brunswick Anti-Shale Gas Alliance questions why the EUB approved the gas plant in spite of the Board’s conclusion that NB Power had abused the hearing process “by filing applications and evidence at the last minute thus unfairly limiting review time needed by both the Board and interveners.”

He suggests that the EUB felt it had to grant regulatory approval on minimal evidence from NB Power.

“One suspects that the EUB, lacking really decisive evidence, acted out of a worry that if the project were denied and a serious blackout occurred later, they would be blamed,” Emberger writes.

“So they accepted NB Power’s questionable arguments as minimally ‘prudent’. But it was obvious that they felt like they were forced into a position and a decision with which they were not happy,” he adds.

“If this project proceeds, the province will be tied for over two decades to fossil fuels and their high costs, supply and price volatility, and climate damage — just as the rest of the world moves away from them.”

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

NB Power wins regulatory approval for Tantramar gas/diesel plant despite harsh EUB rebuke

Posted on May 28, 2026 by brucewark

EUB Chair Christopher Stewart

The New Brunswick Energy & Utilities Board has approved NB Power’s plans for a 500 MW gas/diesel plant near Centre Village that would be built and operated by the U.S. company PROENERGY for 25-years.

In an oral decision, Board Chair Christopher Stewart endorsed NB Power’s argument that it needs additional power by 2028 to avoid the risk of blackouts, especially during periods of peak demand.

“NB Power is not required to show that the proposed project is the only reasonable solution,” Stewart said.

“It must, however, provide sufficient evidence to satisfy the Board that after careful consideration of plausible alternatives, the chosen project is reasonable,” he added.

Today’s decision approved the eight combustion turbines NB Power says it needs to quickly generate 400 MW of peak power.

“Each turbine will be capable of ramping up to full power in six minutes,” Stewart said, adding that the turbines will also “be equipped with a synchronous condenser” to provide grid stability as more intermittent renewable sources such as wind and solar are integrated into the system.

The Board also approved two additional turbines that would generate 100 MW of power for Nova Scotia’s Independent Energy System Operator for an initial 10 year period.

Higher costs justified

The EUB noted that contracting the project out to a private operator would cost NB Power between $82 and $221 million and possibly even more than operating such a plant itself.

 But it said the arrangement is justified because it transfers significant financial risks in constructing, operating and maintaining the plant to the private developers.

“NB Power contends that the chosen delivery model secures eight combustion turbines at a locked-in price in a market where such turbines are in high demand and prices are not decreasing,” Stewart said, “and shifts responsibility for planning and managing the facility from NB Power at a time when its resources are stretched and would be more adequately focused on other large projects.”

The Board also accepted evidence that the multi-billion dollar project could increase power rates by 5% in 2029 and that since NB Power is supplying the fuel, it must shoulder the risk of fluctuating fossil-fuel prices.

The Board rejected evidence from energy consultant Toby Couture that renewables coupled with battery energy storage systems (BESS) would be a cheaper alternative to the gas/diesel plant.

“The evidence presented by the intervenors regarding BESS was general in nature and did not address the specific conditions, costs, and system requirements in New Brunswick,” Stewart said.

“Based on all of the foregoing, the Board is satisfied that meeting the need for at least an additional 400 megawatts of capacity by 2028-2029 with a combined turbine facility in southeastern New Brunswick is technically sound and likely less costly than an adequately sized BESS solution,” he added.

Harsh words for NB Power

Although the EUB approved the project, it rebuked NB Power for how it handled the process suggesting that the utility’s failure to provide needed information could have led the Board to reject the gas plant project.

“In the Board’s view, the summary nature of the evidence initially filed by NB Power with its applications did not lend itself well as to full, transparent, and as rigorous a process as New Brunswickers in general and ratepayers, interveners, and the Board in particular, should expect,” Stewart said.

“The process was rushed by deadlines imposed upon itself by NB Power that were exacerbated by what the Board views as the unnecessarily late filing of the application,” he added.

Stewart said NB Power failed to file key documents until prodded to do so by Board staff and interveners shortly before the EUB hearings began and did not subject the project to its mandatory investment governance framework which ordinarily would have required investment rationale documentation (IRDs).

“NB Power’s failure to apply its investment governance framework and the resulting absence of IRDs at key decision points is and was regrettable,” Stewart said.

“It denied both NB Power’s Board of Directors and this Board the structured, documented analysis of need, plausible alternatives, risks, and costs that all New Brunswickers and ratepayers are entitled to expect before a multi-billion dollar, 25-year commitment is made,” he said.

“But for the fact that the board was able to satisfy itself based on the evidence that it had before it of the need for an additional 400 megawatts of capacity, that the combustion turbine solution is technically sound and will provide the required dispatchable capacity and synchronous condenser capability, and will likely cost no more than a BESS project with equivalent attributes, the Board could not have found the current project prudent,” he concluded, adding that the EUB will start a process for identifying minimum filing requirements for similar applications in the future.

Note: Today’s EUB decision brings the project one step closer to approval. It is also subject to a provincial environmental impact assessment.

To read a Warktimes report about NB Power’s late filing of documents, click here.

This is the first in a two-part series. In Part II, reaction from NB Power and gas plant critics.

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

PROENERGY says gas plant safe, but water study reveals winter supply pressures

Posted on May 27, 2026 by brucewark

Gas plant image from Energy & Utilities Board documents filed by NB Power

The proposed 500 MW gas/diesel generating plant on the Chignecto Isthmus would not pose a threat to human health, according to a consultant’s report commissioned by the U.S. company PROENERGY.

“Basically what we found was that during the electricity generation mode, the project will emit some common air pollutants, but the levels that we’re predicting are below the levels associated with the health effects identified by the World Health Organization,” said Tania Noble, a risk assessor for the consulting company Stantec.

She was speaking Tuesday during a 90-minute, question and answer session organized by PROENERGY, the company that would build and operate the gas/diesel plant over 25 years.

The online meeting also heard from Stantec’s Jennifer McPhail that test wells showed there is enough groundwater to supply the gas plant’s needs, but that the water would have to be managed carefully, especially during peak winter months.

“What our study found was that there is enough water for the project on an annual basis,” McPhail said, adding however, that operational measures would be needed during peak periods to avoid the need to pump more water than the aquifer could sustain.

“What this means is that during periods when the plant is not operating, water could be pumped from the well and put into storage so that it’s available when it’s needed during those peak periods,” she said.

Health study

Tania Noble. Photo: Stantec

During her detailed presentation on health risks, Tania Noble explained that Stantec considered air emissions to be the main concern because there would be no hazardous wastewater from power generation and any solid wastes would be removed from the site for safe disposal.

She said the plant would emit nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide and ammonia only when it is burning gas or diesel to generate electricity, not during 85% of the time when its turbines would be spinning without burning fuel to provide stability to the power grid.

“For electricity generation, the base case or the expected case is a little over 500 hours per year,” she said. “So a very small percentage of the time.”

She added that the Stantec health study used about 2,700 hours per year in its modelling to build in an even greater margin of safety.

While she acknowledged that the modelling showed levels of particulate matter above World Health Organization guidelines, she said existing air quality conditions in the area are already above the WHO guidelines and the gas plant would add only a small incremental amount.

Noble said Stantec was recommending routine, air-emissions monitoring to ensure actual emissions match the study’s modelling predictions.

She also said a comprehensive groundwater monitoring plan is under development to protect residential well users, with commitments to address any effects on their water supplies.

When PROENERGY Canada President John MacIsaac was asked about a letter signed by about 130 scientists and academics opposing the gas/diesel plant partly on health grounds, he said the company commissioned the study assessing health risks even though it was not required under the regulations.

He noted that Stantec’s health impact assessment used a worst case scenario.

“It [the study] clearly articulates that there’s negligible to no human health impact, so the results actually in the report speak for themselves,” MacIsaac said.

Water study

Jennifer McPhail. Photo: Stantec

In presenting Stantec’s water study, Jennifer McPhail maintained it was designed to determine how much groundwater could be pumped from deep underground without affecting other users.

She said Stantec concluded that the aquifer could sustain withdrawals of about 416 litres per minute or up to 435 litres per minute for periods shorter than 30 days.

However, she acknowledged that during the cold months of January and February when the gas plant may need to meet peak electricity demand, it could require about 852 litres per minute or about double the sustainable level, but she said that on-site water storage tanks filled during periods of low demand could fill the gap.

The Stantec water study says that during “constant-rate pumping tests,” groundwater levels recovered gradually after the pumping stopped.

“The prolonged recovery response suggests that the aquifer does not rebound immediately following sustained pumping and that residual drawdown may persist for an extended period after shutdown,” the study adds on page 15.

“This response was considered in the interpretation of wellfield performance and supports the need to evaluate operational pumping rates, pumping duration, and recovery periods when assessing long-term wellfield sustainability.”

When McPhail was asked about the aquifer’s slow recovery, she said the answer would be more complicated than she could provide during the online Q&A, promising to post a written response later on the RIGS website.

Rte 940 

John MacIsaac. Photo: PROENERGY

One question, addressed to John MacIsaac referred to the “poor quality of Rte. 940,” the road that leads to the proposed site of the gas/diesel plant:

“What actions will be taken to bring this highway up to a condition that will allow the heavy trucking that will occur during the construction phase?”

MacIsaac’s response:

“Our commitment to the local residents and to the local municipal unit and to the department of transportation is based on the fact that we recognize the condition of the road. We’ve done a baseline assessment of the road conditions. We’ve done a detailed video recording the condition of the road before any activity was commenced and we’ll take into consideration the condition of the road and the route that we select to travel the heavier loads,” he said.

“The heavier loads will use special equipment to move the heavier pieces across the road so that we mitigate and minimize the risk for road damage and our commitment to the local residents and to the department of transportation is to leave the road in as good a condition as we found it, if not better,” MacIsaac added.

“We’ll be specific on the route that we travel with pieces of gear and and we’re more than likely on the larger pieces to come in from the Shemogue end to minimize the amount of traffic through the community.”

Wildfire risk

When MacIsaac was asked whether PROENERGY had assessed the risks of wildfires that could affect the plant, he replied:

“What we’ve agreed with the provincial fire authority is that we would have the ability to connect to the tanks…and prioritise firefighting ahead of water storage. So there will be the ability to leverage two very large tanks for the unfortunate event or unplanned event of fire in the local area. So it will help support the local fire department in addressing water needs for localized firefighting.”

To read the Stantec human health risk assessment, click here.

To read Stantec’s water supply report, click here.

Posted in NB Power, Town of Tantramar | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

MLA Mitton presses province on road tolls, health care and fate of Wheaton Covered Bridge

Posted on May 22, 2026 by brucewark

Tantramar Green MLA Megan Mitton during community meeting at civic centre in Sackville

Tantramar MLA Megan Mitton stirred up murmurs of protest and a few polite boos Thursday evening when she mentioned the Holt government’s proposal for toll booths on the TransCanada Highway near the provincial border with Nova Scotia.

“I feel like the folks writing the budget were like, this is going to be a big deficit, and…we should put something in there for revenue. Does anyone have any ideas? And someone threw this in,” Mitton said during one of her regular reports to constituents at the civic centre in Sackville.

She added that when she questioned the minister for the department of transportation in the legislature, it became clear that the government hadn’t thought the toll booth idea through.

“They didn’t really have answers about how it would work, if they would exempt local people, if it would still even make sense in terms of the revenue for that. They really didn’t know,” she said, before referring to the chorus of negative comments from the prime minister, provincial premiers, the Atlantic Chamber of Commerce and other groups.

“So I have a feeling it’s quite possible since it’s several years out that they’ll just try to forget about it,” Mitton said.

“But I’ll be vigilant and continuing to try to get information and push back against it.”

Horizon cancels meeting

Before delivering her report on local health care last night, Mitton explained why there were two long tables with 10 chairs behind them at the front of the room.

She said officials from Horizon Health had agreed in February to come to answer people’s questions about local concerns, but then cancelled the meeting in April.

“We had already booked the venue, and so I said, ‘well, let’s still have a meeting,’ but that’s why it looks like it’s set up for a panel discussion,” she said, adding that she is hoping to arrange a community meeting with Horizon this fall.

Mitton said that although services have been expanding at Sackville Memorial Hospital, there is still a need to push for the ER to be open around-the-clock, seven days a week instead of the current, daily hours of 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

She added that although the government promised a year ago to provide a primary care doctor or nurse practitioner for everyone in this area, there are still about 1,500 people on the waiting list.

Long-term care

As for long-term care, Mitton said government after government has failed to address the need for long-term care beds, nursing home beds, special care beds in the home as well as home care staffing.

She pointed out that too many people are still in hospital waiting for long-term beds.

“Something that I’ve brought to the legislature is that sometimes for folks that may have dementia, maybe a fall risk or prone to wandering if the staff aren’t able to sit with them, and so sometimes they’re being tied to chairs,” she said.

“That’s something that is obviously completely unacceptable.”

Mitton called on the government to implement recommendations in the report last fall from Seniors Advocate Kelly Lamrock who pointed out there had been no government action on many of the recommendations he originally made in 2024.

Wheaton covered bridge

Logan Atkinson

Mitton said the provincial department of transportation and infrastructure (DTI) is planning to move ahead this year with the construction of a bridge so that farm and emergency vehicles could cross the Tantramar River on the High Marsh Road.

The new structure would replace the Wheaton Covered Bridge which was closed to traffic in 2024 for safety reasons. After the new bridge is built, the Wheaton bridge would be restored for pedestrian and bicycle crossings.

But later, Tantramar Heritage Trust Past President Logan Atkinson said he feared that time had run out for the 110-year-old covered bridge and that farmers would now lose another year waiting for construction of a newer one beside it.

“I don’t think they would put up with that,” he said, “so that means that the only outcome has to be taking the [covered] bridge down.”

Mitton replied that she spoke to DTI Minister Chuck Chiasson last week who said officials had been trying to reach the owner of the land where the new bridge would go.

“The soil may be an issue in terms of what’s possible to build there,” she said, adding that in order to get environmental approvals, there would need to be an archeological investigation to determine if there are Indigenous artefacts there.

“So, I’m pushing them to move faster,” Mitton said, adding that she would be meeting the district engineer on Friday and the DTI minister again next week.

Municipal resolution

Atkinson pointed out that Tantramar council passed a resolution in January asking town staff to investigate options for the preservation of the covered bridge as a municipally led initiative.

The resolution also called for the creation of a citizens’ committee to raise funds and explore ways of integrating the covered bridge into local trails and roads.

“I don’t think anything’s been done in the five months since that resolution was passed,” Atkinson said, adding later that he planned to raise the matter with the newly elected council when it meets on June 9th.

Mitton responded that she would also be pressing the minister for firmer timelines on the project.

“I’m pushing for them to move faster,” she said. “I’ve been told…that they would be getting going in the summer.”

For previous CHMA coverage on the Wheaton Covered Bridge by Erica Butler, click here.

Posted in NB Power, New Brunswick politics, Town of Tantramar | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Poetry, politics & performance: bill bissett urges demonstrations against proposed gas plants

Posted on May 19, 2026 by brucewark

bill bissett performing his poetry at Parrsboro’s Main & Station

Writer and artist bill bissett brought poetry, politics and performance to the Main & Station arts centre in Parrsboro Sunday along with some advice for citizens’ groups fighting against proposed industrial gas/diesel plants in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

“Demonstrate against bad projects until bad projects stop,” bissett urged during an interview with Warktimes.

“As humans, we know how to do that and we’re good at that,” he added.

“And I hope we just keep doing that.”

Bissett made his comments after learning that the gas plants in both provinces would be built on ecologically sensitive lands with the one in Tantramar on the Chignecto Isthmus covering 36 acres, the size of 18 Canadian football fields, while the two in Pictou County near Marshdale and Salt Springs would each cover nearly 28 acres, the equivalent of 14 Canadian football fields.

“Our latest technology has some benefits, but it also has a huge amount of downsides because it needs more and more power to power it,” bissett says referring, among other things, to big data centres, proliferating electronic devices and electrical appliances.

For him, electric technologies raise political questions about who gains and who loses.

Poetry, politics & pornography

The 86-year bissett, author of more than 70 books of poetry, says he first got interested in politics when his father ran unsuccessfully in Halifax for the Progressive Conservatives in the federal elections of 1949 and 1953.

“The Conservative Party seemed a more adventurous, progressive party at that time and it continued that way for a while with people like Flora MacDonald,” he says.

“It’s only around the time of the reef arm party, if I can phrase it that way, that they became amalgamated with the extreme right and became ridiculously conservative,” he adds, referring to the Reform Party’s rebirth as the Canadian Alliance and its merger with the Progressive Conservatives in 2003 to form the Conservative Party of Canada led by Stephen Harper.

“My father also was a lawyer for Viola Desmond,” bissett says, adding that despite his father’s efforts, the Nova Scotia courts consistently refused to recognize the racism Desmond was fighting in 1946 when she was arrested for refusing to leave a whites-only section of a movie theatre in New Glasgow.

bill bissett’s latest book

Asked what his father  taught him about politics, bissett replies: “That it’s a very rough game,” and he added that when the United States executed Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in 1953 as Soviet spies, his father said the U.S. had taken a horrible turn toward fascism — a turn that Donald Trump is now pursuing with a vengeance.

When bill bissett was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2024, the citation called him “a revered poet and musician” and “a pre-eminent figure of the 1960s counterculture movement,” but at the time, he says, he was constantly harassed and assaulted by police in Vancouver and later, London, Ontario.

“Police used to follow me in Vancouver and drag me out of alleys and haul me into their squad cars and beat the shit out of me,” he told the CBC’s Tom Power during an interview last December.

At the time, he was helping organize marches against the War in Vietnam, advocating for the legalization of marijuana and writing poetry that combined words with sounds using unconventional spellings and no punctuation.

In 1977, several members of Parliament attacked the Canada Council for the Arts for giving him grants calling his work disgusting and pornographic, and bissett received death threats, lost federal support, and had his high-school readings cancelled.

“There is nothing pornographic about my writing,” bissett says. “If there were, I wouldn’t need Canada Council grants to keep writing ever. Pornographers do really well if they are any good.”

Poetry, politics & performance

“This is a very good flashlight,” bissett says at his Parrsboro reading, as he prepares to perform “did yu c th moon last nite” from “th book uv lost passwords 1” his 340-page book of poetry published last year by talonbooks based in Vancouver.

“Let’s see, move my glasses in a certain position, hold the paper at a certain angle,” he says referring to his failing eyesight.

When he launches into the poem, he begins slowly, gradually picking up speed as he chants, then sings words and sounds to convey the joys of the moon’s luminescent beauty:

did you see the moon last night? Overriding everything and all the sailors and growing people only to eventually let go children, navigators, singers and swimmers in the streaming of between here and there and our dance of the sky divers and of women and men, women and women, men and men, bolero and the moon…

and then, gradually bissett is working toward the poem’s final political plea…

coming in and coming in and coming in the moonship and the moonship and the starship and the treasure ship and the ushallah ushallah…and we all need a guaranteed minimum income and that’s what we really need to sort out the world messes messes we need money we need time we need health we need work that we love to do we all need a guaranteed income for doing all that as soon as possible please, thank you so much.

Abou-shali ah-ha oushabaliba, ah-sha-baliba, abou-sha-baliba, abah-shaliba, oh-sha-la-ba-babababa, hoo-ah! Hoo-ah! Hoo-ah! Abou, abou, hoooooooooooooooooooewwwoo!

To listen to bill bissett’s performance of “did u c th moon last nite,” click on the media player.

bill bissett & sister Barb Fisher who lives in Glenholme, N.S.

To listen to bill bissett’s CBC interview with Tom Power, click here.

Posted in Arts, NB Power, Town of Parrsboro, Town of Tantramar | Tagged , | 6 Comments

‘Something smells’: Citizens’ group questions federal approval of Nova Scotia gas plants

Posted on May 16, 2026 by brucewark

LEAP spokesman Mark Brennan. Photo: SUBMITTED

A spokesman for the environmental advocacy group Living Ecosystems and Power (LEAP) says he’s not surprised that the federal agency in charge of regulating big industrial projects has decided not to conduct a full environmental assessment of two proposed natural gas generating plants in Pictou County, N.S.

“To be honest, I’m obviously dismayed, but we’re not surprised considering the federal government’s recent announcements on industrial projects,” Mark Brennan said today during a telephone interview with Warktimes.

He was reacting to the federal Impact Assessment Agency of Canada’s announcement Friday that although the two, 300 MW gas/diesel plants “may cause adverse effects,” no further federal assessment is required because those effects “would be limited or addressed through existing federal and provincial legislative and regulatory frameworks.”

The wording of the IAAC decision is similar to one last September when the agency decided against any further review of NB Power’s planned 500 MW gas/diesel plant near Centre Village.

“The gutting of the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada’s mandate to oversee big industrial projects is something that concerns us,” Brennan said, “because it now looks like basically no oversight from the federal government when it comes to industrial projects and everything is being referred to provincial environmental assessments.”

While New Brunswick is still conducting an environmental assessment of the Centre Village project, the Nova Scotia government has already approved the two plants in the small, rural communities of Salt Springs and Marshdale.

“Our issue from our point of view with LEAP is that the public consultation process has not been a consultation process,” Brennan says.

“It’s basically more of a one-sided process that locals and communities and NGOs (non-government organizations) who care about the environment and care about their own water have no say,” he adds.

Brennan says local residents are worried about the immediate effects of the gas plants on their wells and the toxic chemicals such “peaker plants” release into the air that people breathe.

Critical wildlife habitat

The West River in Pictou County, NS/Mi’kma’ki. LEAP says the proposed gas plant in Salt Springs “sits right next to vital cold-water tributaries for this river. These water ways are some of the few remaining healthy Atlantic salmon habitat in our province. The Mi’kmaq name for this river is Wakumutook which translates to ‘Clear Water’.” Photo: Mark Sander

“These two gas plants are slated to go into the headwaters of two salmon rivers, namely the East and the West Rivers,” Brennan says, “and this puts an almost critical level of stress on Atlantic salmon in two of the still most positive rivers in this area for spawning and breeding.”

In addition, he says, both sites threaten breeding grounds for threatened or endangered species including the Canada warbler which flies from South America to breed in forested wetlands.

“Eighty percent of that population breeds in Canada, and at both sites, the Canada warbler was found breeding,” he says, adding that the gas plants would destroy the habitat the birds depend on.

“We feel like the governments are not living up to their own mandated requirement to take into consideration species at risk,” he says,

“There is a recovery plan for the Canada warbler and the provincial government and the federal government have both signed on to that recovery plan. And we need to know why both the federal ministers of the environment and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans minister and the provincial environment minister here in Nova Scotia, why are they ignoring species-at-risk legislation to the point where critical habitat for endangered species will be destroyed?” Brennan asks.

Judicial review

People gathered on April 11th in Marshdale & Salt Springs, Pictou Co. to attend a Water Ceremony led by Tonya Francis at the proposed sites of the two peaker plants. Photo: Christine Whelan

Brennan says that aside from environmental and health concerns, LEAP members are worried about the effects on power rates.

“If you’re going to spend billions on gas plants that burn gas to generate electricity that is connected to world market prices, what are your electricity bills going to be?” he asks.

“For the consumer, it’s something that we should really be paying attention to.”

Meantime, LEAP has filed for a judicial review of the projects in the Nova Scotia Supreme Court to determine whether the provincial environment minister followed a decision-making process that was fair, complete and consistent with the requirements set out in provincial legislation.

Brennan calls it a “travesty” that rural communities worried about the destruction of their environment have to take legal action.

“Why should small communities have to take their own governments to court to make sure that they are carrying out their own legislation? It’s not right. It’s not fair. And something smells. You know, there’s  something wrong.”

Note: Nova Scotia’s Independent Energy System Operator (IESO) issued a Request for Expressions of Interest last October for the construction and operation of one or two 300 MW gas plants in Pictou County, but says it has not made a final determination on whether “one, or both, of the proposed sites are suitable to support the project, considering environmental, technical, financial, cultural and community impacts. The results of this analysis and the competitive procurement process will inform whether one, two, or no contracts are awarded.”

To read the IESO’s latest news release, click here.

To read a Halifax Examiner report by Joan Baxter on the political connections at play in the Pictou gas plant proposals, click here.

To visit the GoFundMe page that is soliciting donations for the judicial review, click here.

Posted in Environment, NB Power, Nova Scotia Government | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

‘He kept us in the dark’: Activists attack Carney power strategy and LeBlanc’s silence

Posted on May 14, 2026 by brucewark

Moe Qureshi of the Conservation Council of New Brunswick addressing an anti-gas plant meeting in Moncton in January

New Brunswick environmental activists are reacting with alarm to Prime Minister Carney’s announcement today of a National Electricity Strategy that promotes the burning of natural gas to help double Canada’s supply of electrical power by 2050.

“A national electricity grid should be designed to move Canada beyond fossil fuels, not deepen our dependence on them,” says Moe Qureshi, Director of Climate Research & Policy at the Conservation Council of New Brunswick.

“Expanding gas generation under the guise of affordability or reliability ignores the rapidly falling costs of renewables and battery storage,” he adds, referring to Carney’s claim that using a wide range of energy sources including natural gas to double grid capacity would “supply clean, reliable and affordable power across the country.”

Qureshi says the new strategy would risk saddling Canadians with costly, outmoded fossil fuel plants and rising climate costs for decades to come.

‘No demonstrated need’

“Regardless of how many renewables are added to the grid, continued or increased use of gas (and diesel in Tantramar’s case) does nothing to diminish greenhouse gas emissions,” Jim Emberger, spokesperson for the New Brunswick Anti-Shale Gas Alliance writes in an e-mail to Warktimes.

Jim Emberger, NB Anti-Shale Gas Alliance. Photo: Deborah Carr

“Recently, both experts and real experience have indicated that renewables, plus batteries (or other storage) can respond instantly, provide 24-hour delivery of electricity without fossil fuel usage — and do so much more cheaply,” he adds. “There is no demonstrated need for new gas.”

Emberger refers to last month’s conference in Santa Marta, Colombia where representatives from nearly 60 countries discussed how to “transition away” from fossil fuels.

“They met on the premise that the era of fossil fuels must end, and that the energy transition must be fast, fair, full and funded,” he writes.

“In this context, Canada’s national grid plan could have been an historic event of global importance, if powered by renewables, batteries, storage, and demand management technologies.”

‘He kept us in the dark’

Barry Rothfuss of the Protect the Chignecto Isthmus Coalition calls the national electricity strategy’s promotion of burning natural gas a big step backward.

Barry Rothfuss of AWI and the Protect the Chignecto Isthmus Coalition (PCIC)

“Why do we have to do this?” he asked in a telephone interview from the Atlantic Wildlife Institute, which would be only about 4.5 kilometres from NB Power’s proposed 500 MW gas/diesel “peaker plant” near Centre Village.

Rothfuss argues that while the gas plant would generate profits for the fossil fuel industry, its health and environmental effects would devastate local communities.

“They say burning gas would help in the transition to more renewables and energy security, but that’s only a marketing strategy,” he says, referring to a detailed submission he wrote to Beauséjour member of Parliament Dominic LeBlanc last month.

“A grid that keeps the lights on while filling the lungs of its neighbours with nitrogen dioxide, particulate matter, and combustion byproducts is not energy security — it is a trade of one crisis for another. A fatal remedy, by definition, kills what it claims to cure,” his submission says.

“All along Dominic has told us he can’t get involved in addressing the gas plant because it’s a provincial issue,” Rothfuss says.

“Yet, as a senior federal cabinet minister, he had to have known all along that the national electricity strategy would promote burning natural gas. He knew this was coming, but chose to keep us in the dark.

“I’m really upset with him, handling this the way he did. It bothers me a lot.”

To read the Rothfuss submission, click here.

To read Carney’s announcement of the national electricity strategy and a background paper that accompanied it, click here and here.

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

‘Learning how to look’: New book celebrates Mount Allison’s vivid arts legacy

Posted on May 13, 2026 by brucewark

“We all understand that at this point in time, creativity and the liberal arts is under fire,” Thaddeus Holownia told a large crowd gathered in the atrium of Mount Allison’s Purdy Crawford Centre for the Arts on Saturday.

“And this institution stands head and shoulders above any place else in this country in giving people that kind of an opportunity that you come here and you study, but you are affected by the strength of the visual arts, the performing arts, the music,” he said as he launched his latest book, Leaders in the Field: The History and Legacy of Art at Mount Allison.

The 300-page volume, co-edited by Holownia and art historian John Leroux, tells the stories of the teachers, artists and students who made the Mount Allison art department into a national and international presence over 170 years.

“There’s no doubt that today being Mother’s Day is a really auspicious day for us to be here,” co-editor John Leroux told the crowd.

“Mother’s Day, it is so perfect that we’re talking about honouring an institution which was established by women, taught by women at the Ladies College in 1854 for the first several generations of this department. It was all centered around women teaching women.”

Leroux said the book shows the tangible, authentic and beautiful things that students and their teachers made over many generations at Mt. A. — works of art that included the self-portraits graduating students were required to paint beginning in 1947.

Like the one of Carol J. Bleackley in 1956.

Carol J. Bleackley, self portrait, 1956. Owens Art Gallery Facebook post

“A beautiful modern portrait. We used it in the book because formally, it was lovely,” Leroux said.

He added that after the book went to print, he discovered that the late Carol Bleackley had married Paul Sills, founding director of The Second City improv theatre in Chicago and that together they changed North American culture.

“She’s like a theatre god in Wisconsin, and her children are theatre professionals,” Leroux said as he told how he got in touch to tell them about the book.

“‘We always heard about this magical, mythical place that Mom talked about called Mount A. It’s like the Emerald City, high on a hill. And she spoke about it with such love and such reverence and passion,'” Leroux said quoting the Bleackley children.

“They’d never been here. And it warmed their heart to no end to know that their Mum is in this book and that her portrait was in an exhibition at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery.”

‘Atlantic Realism’

The book tells how the teaching of fine arts at Mt. A. dates back to 1854 making it the oldest university art department in Canada.

The Owens Art Gallery, founded in 1895, is Canada’s oldest university art gallery and Mt. A’s Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, which dates from 1937, was the first of its kind in Canada.

“A Winter’s Evening” by Stanley Royle (1923). Owen’s Art Gallery, Facebook post

“Over a period of three decades from the late 1930s until the late 1960s, Mount Allison University rose to the position of the premiere fine arts program in Atlantic Canada and one of the major innovators in art education in the country,” writes Ray Cronin in one of three, extensively illustrated essays in the book.

He points to three key figures who inspired and led the transformation and three key students who pushed it along: British artist Stanley Royle, (who led the department from 1935 to 1945);  Lawren P. Harris, son of a Group of Seven artist (1946 until his retirement in 1975); and Alex Colville, Mt. A’s most famous graduate, teacher and professional artist. The three student prodigies were Mary (West) Pratt (class of ’61); Christopher Pratt (’61) and Tom Forrestall (’58).

Cronin writes about how these six figures fostered “Atlantic Realism” as a popular art movement that “still holds sway over much of the public’s memory.”

380 million Colvilles

“When Alex Colville died 10 years ago…the news in Canada froze for a 24-hour cycle,” John Leroux said during Saturday’s book launch.

“It was as if we lost a statesman and we had, and you realize the importance of this man who lived here, who went to school here, who came back and taught here and he lived a hundred metres that way in a house that’s still there,” Leroux said pointing up the hill toward York Street.

“We know that the most highly circulated artworks in Canadian history were designed 100 metres from here at his house, the Colville House. The 1967 Canadian coins, which were probably the most beautiful and most mass-produced Canadian artworks in history were designed here at Mount Allison,” he added.

“Do you know how many of these they made? 380 million!” Leroux said to laughter which got louder when he added: “He prints in editions of five!”

‘Learning how to look’

“A figure filmed in black and white appears on a screen, visible only from the chest up, and lights a cigarette,” writes Mireille Eagan, curator of contemporary art at The Rooms, in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

Her illustrated essay chronicles the years from the 1970s to the present in the Mt. A. Fine Arts Department starting with Sackville, I’m Yours, a now-iconic example of video art created in 1972 by a young teacher named Colin Campbell who had been hired to teach sculpture at Mt. A.

Colin Campbell as Art Star. Screenshot of YouTube video

His 15-minute video, which was projected on The Cube in the Sackville Industrial Park in 2020 after the outbreak of the COVID pandemic, was shot using a reel-to-reel video recorder borrowed from the athletics department.

“My name?” Campbell says to an offscreen (and unheard) interviewer.

“I thought everybody knew. My name is Art Star,” he answers. “Well, uh, Sackville is a…it’s a great little town,” he adds before describing with a touch of irony how “there’s nothing I haven’t done or seen in this town,” including visiting “a great little dump — I would say probably — one of the best dumps, yeah, yeah, I spend a lot of time out there. Yes, oh yeah.”

“Campbell’s video walks a fine line between humour and sadness,” Eagan writes. “It is a veiled discussion of the oppressive feeling of being unable to express one’s sexual identity in public.”

She quotes Owens curator Emily Falvey who writes that the video describes the feeling “of living in a place without having arrived, or rather, arriving in Sackville while preparing to depart.”

Campbell as Art Star says to the video camera: “Sackville is my home. Sackville…what can I say? I’m yours.”

After Campbell failed to receive tenure, he left Mt. A. the next year touching off student protests with many leaving for the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax.

Eagan writes about sitting in a darkened room many years later as images from Canadian art history are projected on a screen.

“‘Which of these would you describe as a landscape?’ the professor asks. It seems simple at first, but it becomes apparent that the answer isn’t straightforward. With each slide, you learn how to look.”

Eagan reports that students’ eyes glaze over when the slide shows a watercolour scene, but respond with renewed interest when the professor suggests that Campbell’s video is about place as much as the watercolour is.

“Art draws attention to what has been in front of us all along,” she writes. “It also asks us to look compassionately at our surroundings.”

Posted in Arts, Mount Allison University, Town of Sackville | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Debbie Wiggins-Colwell is Tantramar’s new mayor as voters turn to several fresh faces

Posted on May 11, 2026 by brucewark

Tantramar Mayor-elect Debbie Wiggins-Colwell. Campaign photo

Debbie Wiggins-Colwell won a decisive victory Monday in the Tantramar mayoralty contest winning more votes than her two rivals combined.

“I am so thrilled about it, I really am,” she said as she celebrated her victory with family and friends at her home in Dorchester.

“I’m ready to get to work,” she added, “bringing transparency and collaboration and working with the council.”

Before amalgamation in 2023, Wiggins-Colwell  was mayor of Dorchester and had been serving as Tantramar’s deputy mayor before the May 11th election.

She was one of seven members of the previous council who ran in the election. Three others — Josh Goguen, Allison Butcher and Barry Hicks — won re-election, but Andrew Black, Bruce Phinney and Michael Tower went down to defeat.

Ward 3 Councillor-elect Tori Weldon. Campaign photo

Former CBC journalist Tori Weldon topped the polls in Ward 3 which includes most of the former town of Sackville.

“I’m really honoured that the people have put their faith in me and I’m really excited to get down to work,” Weldon said during a celebration at her home in Sackville.

When asked why she thinks voters turned to her, Weldon said people were ready for a change.

“I did my best to run a really solid campaign,” she added. “I knocked on doors and talked to people and put up signs. I think I’m also just really lucky to have such a good community here.”

Haidee Robertson, former co-owner of Blooms Flower Shop, will also be representing Ward 3 on the new council.

“I’m surprised and I’m excited,” Robertson said when reached by phone.

Ward 3 Councillor-elect Haidee Robertson. Facebook photo

“I ran because I felt I had something to offer and I’ve got things that I’m interested in accomplishing,” she added.

When asked what she would like to accomplish on council, Robertson mentions subsidized housing.

“That’s a big thing,” she says adding that as a part-time, registered nurse at the Drew Nursing Home, she sees people in vulnerable positions.

“I just think we’re not looking after people who can’t look after themselves,” she adds.

“There is land that the town could make available to certain organizations that are interested in building subsidized housing.”

Ward 1 Councillor-elect Alyssa Greene. Campaign photo

Alyssa Greene won a narrow, four-vote victory in Ward 1 which includes the former Village of Dorchester and surrounding LSDs.

She was still on the job at Canada Post when Warktimes called to ask about her priorities.

“I think that my priority really is representing the many things that the people of Dorchester brought up to me on my door-to-door campaign,” Greene says.

“The roads and the crosswalks and the sidewalks, they all need to be accessible for people who have limited mobility or visual or hearing impairments or any other type of disability,” she adds.

“It’s all interconnected and everything that we work on as a council needs to give consideration to that interconnection of all the communities and the people within them.”

Greene says she’s looking forward to working with Debbie Wiggins-Colwell as mayor.

“So I’m happy that we see some good results. And the results with the rest of the councillors I think are pretty good as well. We have some good people there that are going to serve well.”

Incumbent Councillor Barry Hicks eked out a narrow, re-election victory in Ward 2 which includes Frosty Hollow and communities such as British Settlement, Wood Point and Rockport.

In Ward 5, former Point de Bute fire chief Wayne Wells won a more decisive victory, while Kristen LeBlanc was acclaimed in Ward 4 which includes Midgic, Cookville, Centre Village and the site of the proposed NB Power gas plant.

Ward 5 Councillor-elect Wayne Wells. Campaign poster

Posted in Tantramar municipal election 2026, Town of Tantramar | Tagged | 1 Comment

Tantramar council dismisses complaint over ‘hostile’ Facebook posts

Posted on May 6, 2026 by brucewark

At a special meeting on Monday, Tantramar Town Council dismissed a code of conduct complaint against Councillor Josh Goguen in connection with his work as a moderator of the Facebook group “Sackville NB Community Chatter.”

In an e-mail to CAO Jennifer Borne, the unidentified complainant wrote that Goguen had failed to “to promptly address a thread in which I was subjected to repeated personal attacks, disparagement, and hostile commentary between April 29 and May 2, 2026.”

The complainant added: “These comments were not isolated or trivial. They included attacks on my mental health, character, family life and political or religious views.”

The complainant wrote that Goguen had failed to uphold “the standard of respectful interactions expected under the code of conduct,” adding that he lacked the “professionalism and decorum reasonably expected of an elected municipal official,” and that he had “undermined public confidence in the impartiality, professionalism, and integrity expected of elected officials.”

To read a condensed version of the full complaint, click here.

Goguen’s defence

Councillor Josh Goguen

During Monday’s council meeting, Goguen read a statement denying he had breached the council code of conduct and asserting that he had directed the complainant to other administrators because he was busy with his re-election campaign and other commitments.

“The Facebook group in reference in the complaint is a community-run discussion forum, not a municipal communication channel, council platform, or official municipal forum. It is not endorsed, operated, or funded by the municipality of Tantramar,” he said, adding that when one comment relating to the complainant’s children was drawn to his attention, he acted to have it removed.

“Out of an abundance of caution, to avoid any confusion between my role as a councillor and informal online spaces, I’ve posted a notice on this affected page stepping back as an admin and moderator.”

To read Josh Goguen’s full statement, click here.

“No merit’ in complaint

None of the members of council found merit in the complaint with Councillor Matt Estabrooks summing things up this way:

“Councillor Goguen didn’t author the [Facebook] comments himself. There was a delay, from what I can tell, in the timeline from when they were posted to when they should have come down,” he said, adding that the comments themselves should never have been made.

Estabrooks said it might have been wiser for Goguen to have stepped away from his moderation role before running for re-election and there might be a lesson there in future.

Mayor Andrew Black

“I do feel bad for the person who filed the complaint that they were suffering,” Mayor Black said

“That is absolutely not acceptable and I would call on the community to be nice to each other,” he added.

“Social media gives people the opportunity to say whatever they want, anytime they want, and it’s hugely problematic,” the mayor said.

“I would say to the community, to Tantramar residents, to just be nicer, be better to people and know that the words that you say have a huge impact on people’s lives.”

Posted in Town of Tantramar | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Tantramar candidates call for town to restore contact info. on new website

Posted on May 5, 2026 by brucewark

Many of the candidates running for a seat on Tantramar council on May 11th say the town’s new website that was launched last October should include full contact information for members of council and senior management staff.

“I don’t know what happened to the site that doesn’t show our e-mail addresses, but I will say that I personally think that all councillor e-mail addresses should be listed. I also feel that the CAO & Department Directors should be as well,” Councillor Michael Tower wrote in response to an e-mail from Warktimes.

My e-mail to the candidates pointed out that it is difficult to find e-mail addresses for individual members of council and that the names of department heads are no longer included on the new website along with their e-mail addresses as they were on the old one:

New Tantramar website

Old Tantramar website

New website (no contact information)

Old website (with e-mail address)

Council e-mails buried

E-mail addresses for members of council are buried at the bottom of a page on council meetings and it is not possible to e-mail them individually, but only as a group.

Ward 2 candidate Ken Hicks wrote a strongly worded e-mail to Warktimes in which he called for greater transparency from the town:

  • “Every councillor should have their specific municipal email address clearly listed on their individual profile page. No resident should be forced to e-mail the entire council if they have a ward specific or private concern.
  • “The heads of our municipal departments should be identified by name with direct contact information. Residents deserve to know who is responsible for the services their tax dollars fund and should be able to reach those leads directly when issues arise.
  • “Contact information should not be ‘buried’ at the bottom. It should be a primary navigation feature.”

All of the other candidates who responded called for contact information to be listed on the new Tantramar website.

They were Alyssa Greene (Ward 1), Barry Hicks (Ward 2), K.C. Hingley (Ward 5), Tori Weldon (Ward 3), Allison Butcher (Ward 3), Andrew Black (Ward 3), Bruce Phinney (Ward 3).

Mayoralty candidate Debbie Wiggins-Colwell wrote in her e-mail: “Oversight for sure.”

So far, Tantramar CAO Jennifer Borne has not responded to the Warktimes e-mail which asked her whether the absence of contact information on the new website was “accidental oversight or a deliberate change in communications policy.”

To read my e-mail, click here.

Posted in Tantramar municipal election 2026, Town of Sackville, Town of Tantramar | Tagged | 25 Comments