Tantramar mayoralty candidates. L-R: Sabine Dietz, Debbie Wiggins-Colwell, Terry Jones

The three Tantramar mayoralty candidates — Sabine Dietz, Debbie Wiggins-Colwell and Terry Jones — discussed how to resolve ongoing problems within the Sackville Fire Department during their one-hour radio forum on Friday at CHMA, 106.9 FM, the local, campus-community radio station.

The radio forum was organized by Warktimes and moderator Carol Cooke.

The turmoil in Sackville Fire & Rescue came to a head in January when 12 firefighters turned in their pagers taking themselves off the active-duty roster. That left 18 volunteer firefighters to respond to calls, only about 40% of the full complement of 43.

The town responded by hiring a Saint John law firm that specializes in employment issues to conduct a workplace investigation that is still ongoing.

In 2021, the Montana Consulting Group had conducted a workplace assessment of the fire department. The Montana report and its 20 recommendations were never made public.

In 2024, Councillor Bruce Phinney asked a New Brunswick judge to order the release of the recommendations, but Mr. Justice Jean-Paul Ouellette ruled they must remain confidential under the provisions of the Right to Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

Here is the audio of the mayoralty candidates’ discussion with a lightly edited transcript below it:

Tantramar Mayoralty Candidates Radio Forum, Friday April 17, 2026 at 2 p.m. at CHMA 106.9 FM.

Question Two on the crisis within the Sackville Fire Dept.

Carol Cooke: Question two: Many residents in Sackville are worried about their safety now that the fire department has only about 40% of the staff it needs. There’s an ongoing workplace investigation into Sackville Fire and Rescue. Debbie, to start with you, what do you feel needs to be done to restore the Sackville Fire Service to full strength? And, would you commit to releasing the report and the recommendations of the investigators when they become available?

Debbie Wiggins-Colwell: Thank you, Carol. This subject is most concerning to me. We rely on our fire department and firefighters in supporting recruitment. Retention means clear communication, proper resources, and strong leadership from the town hall.

Going forward, our town hall has to keep an ear close to the ground to engage with firefighters with no communication gap between council and administration. As for the release of the report, I would be open to ongoing reviews, discussion prior to the release.

Carol Cooke: But just to reiterate, Debbie, would you commit to releasing the report and the recommendations of the investigators to the public?

Debbie Wiggins-Colwell: Yes.

Carol Cooke: Okay, great. We’ve got that. Now we’re going to pass to Sabine Dietz. Would you like to just go right into the question?

Sabine Dietz: Yeah, and I would like to respond to what Debbie said. So a couple of things. This issue is not new. When I came on council in 2020, if I remember correctly, that was not new. And as far as I know, it’s been going on for a lot longer. So every continuous council has had this as a priority and there have always been promises made and not kept.

But like Debbie said, fire service and emergency service is key to our communities, whether it is from flooding or wildfires. We need them. And not having everybody in place that should be in place puts risks on all of us. So it’s a priority. But I want to remind the listeners also that there’s a very clear separation between council and staff. The CAO is the only employee of council. And the CAO is responsible for all of the other staff. And under the bylaws of the municipality, firefighters are part of that.

And then the second piece is, no, we cannot promise that this report will be made public. That is actually countering laws. If there’s any HR matter in this report, which I don’t know, they cannot be made public because that’s a confidentiality issue. So I would not commit to it. I would instead commit to doing the work that needs to be done to review everything, to work with the CAO, to figure out what can actually be done. The council has, at this stage, under the bylaws that are in place for the municipality, cannot address this directly except through the CAO, and I want to emphasize that.

So with all of that, it should be a priority of the next council and it should be a priority of the CAO. I’m pretty sure it is because it is concerning to the entire community.

Carol Cooke: Thank you very much for that Sabine and we will pass now to Terry.

Terry Jones: The fire department working at 40 percent is unacceptable. So we really need to work with the CAO as Sabine has pointed out. That is our channel of communication with the fire department. Yes we need to know what’s in the report as far as structure. We do not need to know the HR stuff. We should never violate the Right to Information and Protection of Privacy Act.  We need, we have a legal voice on this already who has stated that and I believe that Councillor Phinney has taken it to court to get it released and it was told at a federal court level that it wouldn’t be because it violated RTIPPA.

So, the idea of just being able to open that report out, however, a new report should be done, and I believe it’s underway already, to find out exactly what is systemically wrong with the fire department. And maybe at that point in time, we have to look at what as a council in association with the CAO can do as far as possibly a restructuring of the oversight in the fire department in themselves, not letting the department just end and go to our CAO. She has a lot going on, but maybe a superintendent position who is another ear that can listen to, that has structure and can add to the overall effect of getting some of these systemic problems corrected.

Carol Cooke: Thank you. Thank you very much, Terry.