Councillor Haidee Robertson asked the premier about unaffordable property taxes, Photo: Town of Tantramar
Aside from highly contentious issues such as the proposed gas plant and the plan for highway tolls, Premier Holt discussed a wide range of other issues with Tantramar Town Council last week including property tax reform, road safety and local health care.
“We’ve been going through a large property tax reform process,” Holt said during the 50 minute meeting last Wednesday.
“That’s partly why we froze property tax assessments last year because it’s a complex system to try and unravel and rebuild.”
The premier was responding to comments from Councillor Haidee Robertson who said the property tax system is making housing unaffordable.
“In the rural setting, the property assessments are so high now that seniors are being forced out of their homes because they can’t afford the tax bill,” Robertson said.
Holt responded that her government is bringing in a new system to ensure that when property assessments rise by more than the rate of inflation, the province will automatically lower municipal tax rates to stabilize the tax bills that property owners pay.
“The value of your house should not necessarily dictate what you pay in taxes,” the premier said referring to the present system under which as tax assessments rose, municipalities reaped a windfall in revenues unless they lowered their tax rates.
Starting next year, an automatic stabilizer will lower municipal tax rates if assessments in a community rise by more than the rate of inflation in any year.
Municipal councils would still be able to raise rates if they need additional revenue, but would have to take political responsibility for their decision.
Under the new system, there will also be higher property tax allowances for those on low incomes.
To read a detailed overview of New Brunswick’s property tax reform, click here.
Other council questions
Councillor Barry Hicks asked Holt about the start date for construction of the temporary, modular bridge at Peck’s Cove.
The premier replied that she did not have a start date, but had been told the project is 80% designed and plans call for it to be installed by the end of 2026.
Councillor Wayne Wells. Photo: Town of Tantramar
Councillor Wayne Wells asked if the provincial veterinary service is still going to be cancelled.
“A lot of farmers in my ward want a provincial vet,” he said.
Holt replied that New Brunswick still intends to privatize the vet service.
“We don’t provide the maintenance guy for your truck, for your business, so it’s the same way that all of the provinces around us, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, PEI, run a private vet service. That’s what we’re doing,” she said.
Wells also asked about improved safety, including left turn and passing lanes on Rte. 16 from Aulac to the Confederation Bridge.
“It’s very busy, it’s very dangerous,” he said. “Me being in the fire department for 42 years, I’ve seen a lot of messes.”
He mentioned residents having to turn left onto Parsons Road and said the government would be receiving a petition seeking a left-turn lane on the highway from the people in Jolicure.
Holt indicated that she had noted his concerns.
Dorchester Penitentiary
Councillor Alyssa Greene referred to the federal government’s plan to build a $1 billion health centre at Dorchester Penitentiary.
She asked if the province could help lobby the federal government for money to upgrade the unpaved stretch of Walker Road that leads from TransCanada highway exit 500 to Dorchester.
Councillor Alyssa Greene. Photo: Town of Tantramar
“We don’t have an exit directly into Dorchester, and that would accommodate the traffic, the prison traffic, and also maybe commercial traffic,” she said.
“We spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to use political capital with the feds,” Holt replied.
“There’s lots of things happening with the feds right now. There’s different levers we can pull or push. We can’t pull every lever every time. And so we’re constantly asking ourselves, is this a fight that we want to take on?” the premier added.
Greene also noted that the province receives money from the federal government to cover municipal property taxes for Dorchester Penitentiary, but sends only part of it to Tantramar.
CAO Jennifer Borne said Tantramar receives between $600,000 and $700,000 from the province as a payment in lieu of property taxes.
“When it goes direct to the municipality, Spring Hill Institution, Cumberland County would receive a little over $2 million,” she said.
Premier’s priorities
Councillor Tori Weldon. Photo: Town of Tantramar
When Councillor Tori Weldon asked about her priorities, Holt said it was an easy question to answer.
“My number one priority is the health care system,” she said.
“And so when I think of Tantramar, I’m thinking about the clinic, I’m thinking about the hospital, I’m thinking about the doctors and nurse practitioners that are getting recruited here,” Holt said.
She noted that Horizon tells her that the 200 people still on the wait list will soon have access to a primary care provider, but said the health network needs to move more quickly on renovations and lease signings to provide needed space.
When Holt also mentioned Mount Allison University as an economic “driving force,” Councillor Weldon said she found talk of privatizing the university “pretty scary.”
“That wasn’t a real thing,” Holt said.
‘Very successful’ meeting
After council’s meeting with the premier ended, Mayor Wiggins-Colwell said she thought it had been very successful.
“She got a lot of information that she may or may not have known about Tantramar and I think that’s it’s good thing to have her informed about what’s going on and what our concerns were.”
When asked about what stood out for her, the mayor mentioned the discussion on property tax reform.
“I liked what she said about stabilizing taxes,”she said.
“I had just come from a meeting in Moncton on that and I thought she explained it really well. So that was my highlight.”
This is the third 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.
Commentary: The tricky world of misrepresentation — gas plant edition
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:
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:
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:
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.
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