Squire St. residents disappointed in Tantramar response to petition on speeding

Posted on August 27, 2024 by brucewark

Squire St. resident Doug Bliss speaking to council about a petition that asks the town to install two speed bumps. Peter Higham is seated behind him

A longtime resident of Squire Street in Sackville says he’s disappointed with the way Tantramar council and staff have dealt with a petition from residents complaining of excessive speeding and noise on their street.

Retired Mount Allison Music Librarian Peter Higham helped gather the 17 signatures on the petition, which was sent to Mayor Andrew Black and members of council, CAO Jennifer Borne, RCMP Sergeant Eric Hanson and Bylaw Enforcement Officer Corey Springer on July 4th.

During the question period at this week’s council committee meeting, Doug Bliss, the current chair of the climate change advisory committee, who also lives on Squire Street, called on Council to respond to the residents’ concerns.

“We want to stress the urgency to the residents of Squire Street about the chronic speed problem which has gone on for two decades since a previous council installed a parking ban on the street,” Bliss said.

The petition calls on the town to install two speed bumps on Squire Street, 100 and 300 metres from where it meets Bridge Street.

Bliss took issue with Assistant Town Clerk Becky Goodwin’s report to Council on the petition and the effectiveness of speed bumps. Goodwin’s report cites one article from an American company that sells radar signs and is critical of speed humps.

Bliss said the article is not actually a “white paper” or research paper, as the company and Goodwin describe it, but only anecdotal information.

Assistant Town Clerk Becky Goodwin presenting her report on the Squire St. petition

During her report to council on the Squire Street petition, Goodwin cited the radar sign company’s list of “shortcomings and frustrations associated with speed humps” including that they are “expensive to install and maintain”, that they slow up emergency vehicles, increase “wear and tear on commercial and residential vehicles” and “reduce fuel efficiency and increase gas consumption forcing drivers to brake and accelerate repeatedly.”

Her report contained no other sources to evaluate the effectiveness of speed bumps.

She said that instead of installing speed bumps, the town would put a radar sign on Squire Street temporarily to collect data on speeding.

Town engineer Jon Eppell said the sign could be ready within a week and he too criticized speed bumps on the grounds that they interfere with snow plowing.

“The difficulty with speed bumps, like any other potential obstruction in the path of the snow plow, is that it may cause the plow blade to fetch up, damaging the equipment, jolting the driver, potentially knocking it off track,” he said.

For his part, Doug Bliss urged the town to keep an open mind and to share with the residents data it gathers on speeding.

In an e-mail today to Warktimes, Peter Higham shared information he gathered on Squire Street involving a noisy, speeding motorcycle at 56 separate times from July 8th to July 30th on afternoons, evenings and at night.

He also sent a submission he was told would be given to members of council before their meeting this week, but he notes that it was not included in Council’s package of background documents.

“I guess we were not expecting too much to come out of the meeting, but this outcome seems particularly disappointing,” Higham wrote.

To read Goodwin’s report to council and to view the Squire Street petition, click here.

To read a scientific study that acknowledges the controversy over speed bumps, but that also shows the installation of speed bumps in Toronto was associated with a a 26% reduction in pedestrian-motor vehicle collisions on local roads, click here.

To read a CBC report about the installation in Fredericton of speed cushions that do not interfere as much with emergency vehicles, click here.

Posted in Town of Tantramar | Tagged , , | 8 Comments

Tantramar consultants gather wide range of ideas at strategic plan drop-in session

Posted on August 24, 2024 by brucewark

White Board check marks showing resident rankings for the importance of municipal responsibilities

Thirty-one participants took up white board markers and sharpie pens as they went from table to table last Tuesday writing the answers to pre-set questions during Tantramar’s third strategic planning session at the Sackville Music Barn.

Two earlier sessions in Sackville and Dorchester attracted 51 participants for an overall total of 82.

“I’m happy with the turnout,” Craig Pollett of the consulting firm Strategic Steps told CHMA’s Erica Butler.

“We’ve got literally hundreds of points of data, ideas that people left, ratings and rankings that they left when they went through our questions,” he said.

“That’s all tremendously valuable and we’ve had a lot of interesting conversations.”

Sticky notes

Participants filled out multi-coloured sticky notes to express their ideas about municipal services and policies.

Multi-coloured sticky notes with ideas for engagement with residents (click to enlarge)

The above photo shows that when they were asked how the town could improve its engagement with residents, participants at the Music Barn had a variety of ideas.

“There should be a clear way for citizens to present ideas and to get action taken,” reads a red sticky note at the upper left of the photo.

It continues into the adjacent right-hand column: “when presented with ideas, council / staff should have the courtesy to respond and explain why they can’t / won’t act or support ideas they disagree with.”

” “YES!!” says the note below with arrows pointing up. “Engage with residents. Be true public servants.”

And below that someone has written: “Totally. Town Hall meetings are very important for allowing everyone to have a voice.”

Other suggestions include: “A feedback box that is always open and available” as well as, “An advertised email/phone/address to ask about town plans and have questions & answers published,” and “Have an easy to access page on the town website with all budgeting and transactions available to the public.”

Another note suggests creating a newspaper.

‘Quality of life’

The sticky notes show that answers also varied when participants were asked about life in the town.


‘One big thing’

No elected reps or staff

Members of town council and senior staff were told not to attend the three drop-in sessions because the consultants felt residents would be freer to concentrate on expressing their ideas using sticky notes and marking pens.

One of the longest responses at the Music Barn was written in blue ink on a red sticky note:

To read more details about what participants wrote at last Tuesday’s drop-in, click here.

To complete an online survey or contribute your own ideas on the town website, click here.

Posted in Town of Tantramar | Tagged | 1 Comment

Consultant says Tantramar council and senior town staff will draft 5-yr. strategic plan behind closed doors

Posted on August 22, 2024 by brucewark

Craig Pollett, vice president of Strategic Steps. The Atlantic branch of the company is based in Nfld & Labrador

Consultant Craig Pollett says Tantramar Town Council and senior staff will hammer out the final details of the municipality’s strategic plan at closed-door meetings in September.

“The sessions won’t be open to the public,” he said on Tuesday during the last of three public consultation drop-ins at the Sackville Music Barn on Station Road.

Pollett, whose firm Strategic Steps is being paid $42,100 to help develop the plan, says councillors and staff will participate in day-long workshops to come up with the plan after  sifting through the results of the public drop-in sessions, interviews with various stakeholders and an online survey.

When asked if his firm would write the plan, he said no. That would be up to members of council and senior staff.

“They’re actually doing the writing. At the end of the workshop, they’re saying ‘Yeah, we’re comfortable with that, we’re comfortable with that.’ We will take that and create a document out of it, but we don’t change their language or anything like that. We take what they came up with.”

Pollett gave a number of reasons why the workshops would not be open to the public.

“I would have difficulty inviting the public to an event that they can’t engage in,” he said.

“This is an opportunity for this council who are the board of directors, if you will, for the organization and that’s the kind of strategic plan we’re writing here, a strategic plan for the corporate entity known as the Municipality of Tantramar,” he added.

“They have to own this plan as a council. They have to be free to have the discussion and focus in that workshop because a two-day workshop for this kind of thing is actually not a long time. It’s a heavy amount of work to do in two days and it’s difficult work to do, not that we’re hiding anything, but just with an audience or with other people in the room who, all they can do is watch you,” Pollett said.

“Council needs two distraction-free days to focus on getting the best out of them for this plan,” he concluded.

Note: On Tuesday, I e-mailed Mayor Black and all members of council as well as CAO Jennifer Borne and Town Clerk Donna Beal asking that they hold these sessions in public so that Warktimes can cover them. So far, I have not heard back from them.

To read my e-mail, click here.

To read the full text of the Supreme Court of Canada ruling I refer to in my e-mail, click here.

Posted in Town of Tantramar | Tagged | 3 Comments

Tantramar NDP candidate stresses health care, housing, renewable energy as main issues in fall provincial election

Posted on August 19, 2024 by brucewark

Provincial NDP candidate Evelyne Godfrey

Tantramar NDP candidate Evelyne Godfrey says that, for her, access to health care is one of the main issues in this fall’s provincial election.

“There needs to be public investment in our public services, health care number one, that’s the universal priority that everybody’s got,” she said during an interview on Saturday.

“The health care budget needs to increase and that’s why we need a change in government.”

Godfrey argues that, aside from spending more money on health care, the quickest solution to the shortage of family doctors and other health care workers is to remove restrictions on those applying to come to Canada as well as the ones already here.

“I’ve been hearing stories about people who are health care workers back in their country and here, they’re having to drive a taxi or do some other work because they haven’t had their qualifications accepted.”

Housing & Energy

Godfrey says the lack of affordable housing is another main issue and she advocates rent caps, more investment in co-op housing and an end to “renovictions,” the practice of evicting tenants to renovate properties so that landlords can charge higher rents.

She made similar points about health care and housing when she ran as a federal NDP candidate in the riding of Beauséjour in 2021.

After losing a provincial NDP nomination contest in Memramcook-Tantramar in 2018, she ran for the party in Fredericton-York where then, as now, she campaigned for more investment in renewable energy from wind, solar and hydro power.

On Saturday, Godfrey criticized Green MLA Megan Mitton for not bringing investments in environmentally friendly technologies to the Tantramar area.

“This is part of the job of the MLA to bring in the investment and the NDP has a platform to actually encourage green business investment and research here.”

Godfrey added that, as a academic archeologist, she’s been involved in conducting research herself.

“I know how research and development is set up and funded and I’m ready, right now, to hit the ground running and get this investment into the province and get people to set up the businesses here which will help jobs and the economy as well.”

Policy forum

Evelyne Godfrey poses with federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh when he visited Dieppe on August 15 for National Acadian Day. Photo submitted

Godfrey says she’s planning to hold a policy forum somewhere in the riding the weekend after Labour Day where NDP members and supporters will be able to discuss the specifics of local election issues.

“People can come out, look at the NDP policy platform and give their input into what they want to see locally in terms of health care, housing, cost of living, education and the economy here because we are a democratic party and it all depends on our members.”

Note: Godfrey grew up in Sackville, but moved away at 19 to pursue studies and a career as an archeologist specializing in artifacts from the Iron Age. She returned to the area in 2018, took up residence in Port Elgin and taught archeology at Mount Allison before the university shut down its anthropology department.

Godfrey still has a residence in England where she serves as an elected member of the board of directors of the Midcounties Co-Operative which has 750,000 members. Among other things, the Co-Op runs food stores, day-cares, a renewable energy company, post offices and a mobile phone business.

Posted in New Brunswick election 2024 | Tagged | 1 Comment

Changes coming Feb. 1st to Tantramar garbage collection

Posted on August 16, 2024 by brucewark

Public Works Director Jon Eppell

Homeowners in Tantramar are going to see changes in garbage collection beginning on February 1st under a new, five-year waste collection agreement that town council approved on Thursday.

Public Works Director Jon Eppell said that under the agreement, the Southeast Regional Service Commission will manage garbage collection on behalf of the municipalities in the region including Tantramar.

In his background report to council, Eppell noted that Tantramar inherited three separate waste collection contracts with varying terms and conditions when amalgamation took effect in January 2023 and with rising costs, it made sense for municipalities to agree to an integrated collection system overseen by the regional service commission.

He explained that the familiar three bag system will continue with clear garbage bags and blue recycling ones picked up on alternate weeks while the green bags containing organic waste will still be collected every week.

But he noted that the company that wins the waste collection contract will map out the routes, days and times.

“We are not saying that you have to collect Tantramar on particular days or that your route cannot span from Tantramar into Strait Shores,” Eppell told council.

“We’re allowing the service providers to optimize in the effort of trying to keep prices down.”

Advance notice

Eppell said Tantramar residents will be given plenty of advance notice about any changes in collection schedules once the routes are announced in September.

He added that under the new agreement, the spring and fall cleanup of bulkier items will be replaced by a new system allowing homeowners to put out one large, bulky item every two weeks with their clear bag garbage.

He noted that the bulky items will include Christmas trees.

The Southeast Regional Service Commission hasn’t announced the name of the company it has chosen to collect the trash, but Miller Waste Services and Fero Waste and Recycling are the only two that bid on the contract.

Eppell said the lack of a spring cleanup in Sackville could affect Mount Allison students in rented apartments who put out large amounts of garbage before moving when their school year ends in April.

“I think we will need to do some targeted communications with Mt. A., the students and with landlords because, at the end of the day, this is a landlord responsibility,” he told council.

He added that Tantramar will request that the mobile EcoDepot come to the Civic Centre in Sackville at the end of April so that students could take garbage there.

‘Good news’

Eppell predicted that the overall cost of municipal garbage collection will rise only slightly next year thanks to a subsidy the regional service commission receives from Circular Materials, the non-profit company that is now in charge of recycling paper, plastics and other packaging materials.

“That’s pretty good news,” he said given that the waste collection industry has been facing sharp increases in equipment, labour, borrowing and insurance costs in the last few years.

The Toronto-based Circular Materials was founded by 17 of Canada’s leading food, soft drink and consumer products makers as well as fast-food restaurants and grocery stores.

It oversees recycling programs in several provinces.

To read more about Circular Materials in New Brunswick, click here.

To read Jon Eppell’s background report to council, click here.

Posted in Town of Tantramar | Tagged , | 5 Comments

Tantramar Councillor Bruce Phinney prospective PC candidate in fall provincial election

Posted on August 14, 2024 by brucewark

Likely Tantramar PC candidate Bruce Phinney

Although he hasn’t been officially nominated yet, Tantramar Councillor Bruce Phinney has agreed to run for the Progressive Conservatives in this fall’s provincial election.

“I look at this at my age as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Phinney told reporters Wednesday outside the Sackville Legion where the PCs had scheduled the founding meeting of their new Tantramar riding association.

“I’m well known. I have been elected for the past 20 years as a councillor. People know where I stand and they know I will stand up and speak out on their behalf,” he said.

Phinney said he met with Premier Higgs in Fredericton for about an hour earlier this month to discuss running for the party and felt he had a lot in common with the PC leader who has been in power since 2018.

“He’s already got a lot of things established,” Phinney said, adding that some issues such as the shortage of family doctors and the lack of affordable housing still need work.

“But if you start putting a Liberal government back in place or a Green Party in place, then you’re going to be starting all over because it’s going to take a while for everybody to get up to speed,” he argued.

He added that if he’s elected, he’ll be able to represent the riding with a seat at the table if the PC government is re-elected.

Phinney pointed out that when he ran as a municipal councillor he never made any promises.

“I can only make one promise and that is to do the best job I can.”

When asked about the Higgs government’s controversial educational Policy 713, Phinney said he isn’t really sure what it’s about.

“It’s something I should have asked the premier when I was up there and I didn’t,” he said, adding he would be seeking clarification from party officials.

When asked if students under 16 should have the right to choose their own names and pronouns for use at school, Phinney said no because they’re not mature enough.

“I truly believe that decision should be made between the child and the parents and then they go to the teacher and explain to them exactly how they wish to have their child addressed.”

Meantime, although Phinney appears to have been selected to run as Tantramar PC candidate, party official Marc LeBlanc says his candidacy must still be confirmed at a local nominating convention to be held at a later date.

PC regional volunteer Marc LeBlanc with prospective PC candidate Bruce Phinney

Posted in New Brunswick election 2024 | Tagged | 2 Comments

MLA Mitton calls for quick repairs to Wheaton Covered Bridge

Posted on August 10, 2024 by brucewark

Green MLA Megan Mitton has appealed to the provincial minister of transportation and infrastructure (DTI) for his help in getting the Wheaton Covered Bridge repaired and re-opened.

In her August 6th letter addressed to Richard Ames, Mitton writes the bridge “needs to be repaired to ensure local residents, farmers, and tourists can travel on it.”

DTI closed the bridge on July 11th after an investigation raised concerns that its structural condition could pose a safety hazard.

In her letter, Mitton says she’s been communicating with district officials to advocate for repairs since the bridge closed and “it sounds as if an evaluation is pending.”

She urges DTI to make its evaluation a priority so that the bridge can be repaired immediately.

“It has already been almost a month and my community and I are waiting for news of when we can expect this work to happen,” she writes.

“Wheaton Covered Bridge is a piece of our history and heritage, and an important landmark. It’s a tourist attraction and an important place for locals, serving as a popular place to take wedding photos, for example,” the letter adds.

“The repair also needs to ensure the bridge is able to handle farm equipment that farmers need to transport and use on both sides of the Tantramar River.

“Currently, they are losing time and fuel, having to travel long-distances, and on roads that need to be graded, such as the Coles Island Road,” Mitton writes.

“I’m calling on you to act with urgency and ensure that repairs to Wheaton Covered Bridge happen right away.”

So far, DTI has not responded to a Warktimes request for more information on its plans for the bridge or its response to Mitton’s letter.

In an e-mail to Warktimes on July 16th, a DTI spokesperson said “there is currently no timeline” for re-opening the bridge.

To read the full text of Mitton’s letter, click here.

To read a report by CHMA’s Erica Butler on how the bridge closure affects local farmers, click here.

For earlier coverage, click here.

Posted in New Brunswick politics, Town of Tantramar | Tagged | 6 Comments

Warning: No one’s safe from potentially lethal climate change

Posted on August 5, 2024 by brucewark

Sabine Dietz addressing community meeting on climate change

About 40 people attending a community meeting in Sackville last week heard a grim message from Sabine Dietz, executive director of the environmental organization, CLIMAtlantic.

No one is safe from any of the effects of climate change including wildfires, flooding, extreme weather and heat, she warned.

“There is no ‘new normal’ anymore,” she added during a town hall meeting sponsored by the Sierra Club of Canada and hosted by the Tantramar Alliance Against Hydro-Fracking.

“It’s all about change and humans are not good with change.”

Dietz dismissed the idea that reinforcing dykes, for example, would necessarily protect the Chignecto Isthmus from the catastrophic flooding that could sever transportation, energy and communications links while threatening homes, farms and businesses.

“You cannot build a dyke for any money in the world that will fix the problem of flooding, potential flooding from the ocean,” she reiterated later during an interview.

“You can’t fix it so that the communities behind are 100% safe.”

Dietz acknowledged that steps do need to be taken, such as reinforcing dykes, to help manage or reduce the effects of flooding, but there are no guarantees of safety.

“Whenever we say across the country, ‘Build this, build that, do this or that and you’ll be safe,’ we’re lying to people.”

Instead, Dietz said, communities need to start thinking more critically and imaginatively about how to cope with the inevitable effects of climate change.

“Imagine things going really badly, imagine things going really well and then figure out a way, how do we get through this, what’s our path through this mess,” she said.

Dietz advocated putting pressure on politicians and officials at all levels to implement measures to mitigate the effects of climate change and to help build climate resilient communities.

She also mentioned the Climate Imagination Session that will be conducted by Quinn MacAskill at the Sackville Commons from 6 to 8 p.m. on August 14th.

For more details, click here.

Emissions caps needed

Gretchen Fitzgerald of the Sierra Club sporting her oil & gas emissions cap

Those who attended last week’s meeting also heard from Gretchen Fitzgerald of the Sierra Club about the need to require oil and gas giants to implement 40-45% reductions in their greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2030.

She pointed out that the oil and gas industry is Canada’s most polluting sector yet it comprises only 5% of the Canadian economy.

Fitzgerald said the Sackville meeting was one of a number being held in Atlantic Canada to generate support for stiffer oil and gas emissions caps.

She added that the meetings are timely because people are experiencing or hearing about wildfires, flooding, extreme heat — climate change effects that are related to the burning of fossil fuels.

“We feel that this is kind of a moment where it’s really valuable for communities to get together and speak about root causes,” Fitzgerald said.

The Sierra Club cites media reporting showing that the country’s per capita greenhouse gas emissions are among the highest in the world yet Canada is not cutting its carbon emissions as quickly as other rich countries largely because of resistance from the oil and gas industry.

Fitzgerald says polling has shown consistently that most Canadians support major reductions in emissions and are taking steps as individuals to cut back themselves, but persistent lobbying by the oil and gas companies is slowing progress.

“There is a fairness argument here,” she adds. “These folks have been raking in massive profits while communities have literally burned.”

To read the Sierra Club fact sheet on emissions caps, click here.

Posted in Environment | 4 Comments

Green MLA Megan Mitton condemns Red-Blue ‘mindset’ about ‘patronage & corruption’

Posted on August 1, 2024 by brucewark

Green MLA Megan Mitton responded to her Liberal opponent today after attending a meeting held by the environmental group, Sierra Club of Canada

Green MLA Megan Mitton says it’s not true that a Liberal majority government is the only way to defeat the Progressive Conservatives led by Premier Blaine Higgs.

“We need a lot of things to change,” Mitton told reporters today after attending a community meeting sponsored by the Sierra Club at the Sackville Commons.

“What’s been happening over the years is [we’re] just going back between Red and Blue, Red and Blue and not really having change for New Brunswickers,” she said responding to her Liberal opponent John Higham who told supporters at his nominating meeting this week that a Liberal majority is the key to defeating Higgs.

“That’s not true,” Mitton said.

“Me being there is also a vote against Higgs,” she added.

She predicted the election will result in a minority government with the Greens holding the balance of power. She made it clear that whichever of the older parties wins a minority, the Greens would not support Higgs

“We’re going to have a new premier,” she said.

‘Seat at the table’

Mitton also rejected Higham’s suggestion that Tantramar needs to elect a member with “a seat at the table” to get things done for the riding.

“I don’t think it should depend who your MLA is and what party they’re in that your community gets what it needs,” she said.

“I think that’s basically advocating for corruption in government, that if you have a seat at the table, you get more. I think that’s fundamentally unfair and we need to move away from that and I fight against that constantly.”

Mitton said New Brunswickers should have access to health care, safe roads and good education without regard to the party affiliation of their MLA.

“We need to get rid of corruption. We need to get rid of patronage in New Brunswick,” she said.

“That’s a really problematic mindset to have and I challenge that all the way.”

Meantime, Mitton confirmed Higham’s statement that he had asked her to run for the Liberals.

“I said, ‘no’, my values don’t align with their party.”

Green Party issues

Mitton says the Green Party will release its platform after the campaign gets underway in September, but in the meantime, voters already know what to expect.

“People shouldn’t be surprised by what they hear from me,” she adds, noting that for the Greens health care is a priority.

“I’ve been working on that with the community advocating to government and also that we need action on climate change, I think people are feeling the heat this summer, seeing the wildfires and knowing that we need to take action.”

Mitton also mentioned the rising cost of living and the need for more affordable housing.

“We need a rent cap, we need property assessment reform,” she said.

“We need a lot of things to change.”

To listen to Mitton’s exchange with reporters, click on the media player below:

Posted in New Brunswick election 2024, New Brunswick politics | Tagged , | 5 Comments

Tantramar Liberal candidate John Higham says majority Liberal gov’t key to ousting Blaine Higgs

Posted on July 30, 2024 by brucewark

NB Liberal leader Susan Holt with Tantramar candidate John Higham. Photo: NB Liberal Party

“A change is needed in how politics are run in New Brunswick,” John Higham told about 50 people who had gathered Monday night at the Veterans Memorial Civic Centre in Sackville.

“Higgs and his team, and their disregard for broader voices, has to go,” the former Sackville mayor declared shortly after he was officially nominated as the Liberal candidate in Tantramar for the provincial election scheduled on October 21st.

“Tantramar must be a part of a new Holt government,” Higham added. “We need an MLA who sits at the table where concerns are heard and where decisions for real change are going to be made.”

Higham, who served as Sackville mayor from 2016 to 2020 and as town councillor from 2008 to 2012, said that his time in politics had taught him to pay attention to community efforts and local voices especially in the field of economic development.

Tantramar Liberal candidate John Higham

He spoke about his efforts to get money to study ways of preventing flooding on the Chignecto Isthmus and expressed pride in helping to attract the electrical transformer manufacturer Cam Tran and the frozen food storage company Terra Beata to Sackville.

Higham also mentioned his more recent volunteer work as co-chair of the Rural Health Action Group which has been lobbying for improvements in local health and hospital services.

He also pointed out it was the Higgs PC government that tried to close six rural hospitals including the one in Sackville.

“Higgs’s approach to health leadership has been wrong, slow, difficult and I would say elitist,” Higham said, adding that after six years of it, 160,000 New Brunswickers “are looking for doctors right now.”

Liberal campaign themes

Higham’s words echoed those of Liberal leader Susan Holt who spoke about the three main themes of her campaign which she summarized using the letters: C, B and T.

“I want to talk about care, balance and team,” she said, adding that care referred to much-needed improvements in health care while balance meant balanced budgets, reinvestment of any surpluses in improved social programs and making life more affordable partly by eliminating the 10% provincial sales tax on home electricity and partly by imposing a cap on rents.

As for team, Holt stressed the need for strong, local voices in the provincial legislature.

“We are going to bring 49 phenomenal individuals together who are going to raise their voices loudly and passionately for their communities,” she said referring to a full slate of Liberal candidates including John Higham.

Higham’s hesitation

Liberal leader Susan Holt

Holt said it took four phone calls to persuade Higham to run again for the Liberals. (In 2006 he came in second, 972 votes behind Progressive Conservative Mike Olscamp.)

This time he is running against Green Party incumbent Megan Mitton, first elected to the provincial legislature in 2018 and re-elected in 2020.

The two served together on town council and Higham told reporters after the meeting that he had hesitated to run against her.

“I thought about it long and hard,” he said.

“I actually went and spoke to her personally and said, ‘My issue with this is that Higgs has gotta go and you have to have a majority government to get him out and would you at all be interested in running as a Liberal?'” Higham said, adding that Mitton answered that she would not run as a Liberal.

“That was quite some time ago,” he said, “so, it’s not something that we wanted to do, she’s a good representative yes, but I think the stakes are now so high and you can’t just hope that you’ll get enough seats, you actually have to go out and try to find enough seats that you can make sure that he (Higgs) is not the government next time.”

To listen to John Higham’s exchange with reporters, click on the media player below. It begins with a question from CHMA reporter Erica Butler about Liberal strategy in the new riding of Tantramar which no longer includes the Village of Memramcook:

Note: The Progressive Conservatives have scheduled a Tantramar constituency meeting beginning at 6 p.m. on August 14th at the Sackville Legion.

Posted in Health care, New Brunswick election 2024, New Brunswick politics | Tagged | 4 Comments

Sackville town crier David Fullerton remembered for his passion, humour and community spirit

Posted on July 22, 2024 by brucewark

Sackville Town Crier David Fullerton delivers the 2021 New Year’s Day message online. Fullerton served as town crier for 18 years from 2004-2022. Photo: Town video

David Fullerton’s three children remembered their father last week as a man who was passionate about politics, history, teaching, music and sports.

“Stick to your convictions,” former Sackville Town Councillor Merrill Fullerton quoted his father as saying during David’s funeral service at Sackville United Church July 18th on what would have been his 81st birthday.

Fullerton died on June 16th in the Drew Nursing Home. He had been suffering from Alzheimer’s.

In his eulogy, Merrill spoke about driving around town with his father during the 1987 provincial election campaign.

When Merrill, then a young boy, admired the attractive red Liberal signs that were popping up on lawns everywhere, David (known by his family and friends as Dave) shocked his son by saying he’d be supporting the candidate with the scarcer — and far homelier — orange signs.

“Politics should never be about fashion,” Dave told his son, though on election night Frank McKenna’s fashionable Liberals painted the electoral map red, winning every seat.

Merrill also recalled how his father deplored the racist attitudes of many New Brunswickers in 1990 when Mohawk protesters near the Quebec town of Oka engaged in a 78-day standoff with police and the Canadian army over the expansion of a golf course on land that contained an Indigenous burial ground.

“Always remember that the First Nations were among the first to enlist in World War Two to fight for our country,” Dave reminded everyone then.

“He had a strong sense of social justice,” Merrill said, adding that his father supported official bilingualism as a way of uniting the province’s two main linguistic communities.

Dave Fullerton also volunteered with the Sackville Refugee Response Coalition, sponsoring families fleeing war and persecution, because he believed Canada should always provide a safe haven.

‘Greasy Dave’

“Greasy Dave” lead singer of the Dipsticks. (Family photo)

Matthew Fullerton remembered his father’s passion for music, especially the Rolling Stones.

“He was born only eight days before Mick Jagger,” Matthew said, “and he was a rock star of sorts himself.”

As a “rock star” umpire with Sackville Minor Baseball, he said Dave made everyone laugh at his antics behind the plate.

As lead singer of the teacher band “Greasy Dave & the Dipsticks,” he entertained students during variety shows at Amherst Regional High School, where he taught social studies and history for more than 30 years.

“He was a funny and fun-loving father,” Matthew said.

He recalled how Dave was working part-time in the Mount Allison library, with plans to study library science at the University of Toronto, when he met his future wife Diane. He fell madly in love, abandoned any thoughts of faraway Toronto, and earned a teaching degree in Halifax instead.

Dave and Diane were married for almost 55 years.

‘Teaching, his true calling’

Dave’s daughter Kathryn remembered his love of teaching and how he took on the role of historic figures as he acted out their famous speeches.

“Teaching was his true calling,” she said, a thought echoed by several retired teachers who were part of the overflow crowd watching the funeral service in a packed Ducky’s pub.

David Fullerton, town crier with his late mother Marcie, early 2010s. (Family photo)

George Pugsley, who taught math and science at Amherst High, described Fullerton as popular with students and colleagues alike because he was open and outgoing with everyone.

“He was interested in whatever you were doing,” Pugsley said, “and it didn’t have to be one of his main interests either.”

“I would say that Dave was special,” said Dale Fawthrop, who served as head of the English department at Amherst High during the 80s and 90s when David Fullerton was head of history.

“He loved his job, he loved his students, and he put his heart and soul and all his energy into the classroom, and the students learned and they loved being there,” Fawthrop said.

“My three children all had him as a teacher,” he added. “He would energize the students and they loved his sense of humour and the way he presented ideas.”

Passion and community spirit

Everyone at Ducky’s had a story about Dave Fullerton, with recurring themes of Dave’s kindness, humour, generosity, and his passion for life, community, and people.

Rick d’Entremont, who served as Amherst High vice principal until 2011, said he would have been the one to deal with any disciplinary problems in Dave Fullerton’s classroom.

“But there weren’t any,” he said. “Kids liked to be there and they liked to stay there.”

He added that after Fullerton retired from Amherst High in 2003, he recruited him to serve as a substitute teacher for four or five years, working one-on-one with kids with special needs.

“He loved that and they loved him,” d’Entremont said. “He had all the patience in the world working with those students.”

To read, David Fullerton’s full obituary, click here.

Dave Fullerton was born and grew up in this house at 362 Main St. in Middle Sackville. It is now the HQ for The New Wark Times

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