Last day for public input on NB climate plan
Your chance to weigh in on New Brunswick’s next climate plan closes tonight at midnight.
New Brunswick’s climate change plan is just over five years old, passed in December 2016 under Brian Gallant’s Liberal government. It’s now due for a required five-year review, and in January the Higgs government opened up a month-long consultation period for New Brunswickers to give their input. That period closes tonight at midnight.
There’s not much to indicate that this consultation is a particularly important process for the province. There’s no roadshow of virtual or in-person community consultations, no discussion papers published. A standing legislative committee has heard from experts and officials, including the town of Sackville’s CAO Jamie Burke, but in terms general public input, there’s simply a link to an online form, and an email address to send further input. It’s not exactly an inspiring public consultation process.
But despite the low profile, Sabine Dietz says that public consultation is important. Dietz is director of CLIMAtlantic, a new Sackville-based clearing house for information and analysis about climate change in Atlantic Canada. She’s also a Sackville town councillor who ran on a platform calling for robust response to the climate crisis at all levels.
“It does matter,” says Dietz of the public input process. “It’s like you write a letter, and people and politicians know that there’s 10, 100 more people that think the same way.”… Continue
Talking tidal floodplains with town engineer Dwayne Acton
Listen here to Tantramar Report for Tuesday, February 22, 2022.
Isthmus study to be released by spring
A report on the Chignecto Isthmus and what to do about securing its future will be released within weeks, according to the communications director for the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure (DTI).
Mark Taylor says DTI is “in discussions with the federal government” and expects information to come out no later than spring.
DTI minister Jill Green recently met with Sackville mayor and senior staff and the topic of the long-awaited report was brought up. Taylor says that before a public release, the town of Sackville will be briefed on what’s in the report.
Taylor wouldn’t say if the full consultant’s report would be released, but rather that “we will be releasing everything the public is looking to know.”
The report was commissioned just over two years ago, in January 2020, and completed by Wood Environment & Infrastructure Solutions. The $700,000 study was cost shared between the federal and two provincial governments.
According to Taylor, the long wait for the report’s release is in part due to the federal election which delayed discussions about the resulting report. But he said DTI and their Nova Scotia counterparts have been in discussions with Transport Canada since late last year.
“We appreciate the public’s patience,” says Taylor, but the magnitude of the report required consultations with many stakeholders.
Sackville mayor Shawn Mesheau is expecting the report to go beyond the Isthmus to include both Sackville and Amherst.… Continue
Scale up climate adaptation ‘significantly,’ legislators told
Increased risk of flooding in the Sackville area was top-of-mind as a legislative committee on climate change began hearings last week.
Jamie Burke, chief administrative officer for the Town of Sackville, stressed concerns about floods affecting the Chignecto Isthmus, the narrow strip of land linking Nova Scotia to New Brunswick.
“Having this flooded is obviously is going to have a major financial impacts for the rest of the country and beyond,” he said as on Thursday, as the virtual hearings began.
Some $20 billion in goods move through the area along this transportation link annually, he told the standing committee on climate change and environmental stewardship.
“And we just have to look to our friends and on the west coast of British Columbia [to see] what happens when Mother Nature shows how relentless and cruel she can be,” he said, in an apparent reference to heavy rainfall in B.C. which led to disastrous flooding in November.
Burke said municipalities like Sackville don’t have the fiscal capacity to fund massive infrastructure projects necessary for climate change adaptation.
Sabine Dietz, executive director of CLIMAtlantic, a Sackville-based climate information clearinghouse, said government investments in climate change adaptation are inadequate.
“I understand that adaptation is not as sexy as electric cars not as sexy as solar panels,” said Dietz, who is also a member of Sackville town council.… Continue