A new Battle of Chignecto sees provinces and federal government dodging the bill to fortify the Isthmus
It’s been about 275 years since the Battle of Chignecto saw two of North America’s colonial powers fight for control of the Chignecto Isthmus.
These days the strip of land is still highly valued, particularly as the only transportation corridor connecting Nova Scotia and Newfoundland with New Brunswick and the rest of the country.
But the Chignecto Isthmus is vulnerable to the realities of climate change. Sea level rise and more frequent, severe storms mean the threat of dykes breaching and flooding the corridor with coastal waters increases every year, as does the price of fortifying it, currently estimated at about $650 million.
And that’s why there’s a new battle of Chignecto in 2024, this time not about taking control of the Isthmus, but about giving up responsibility for maintaining it. While the federal government has committed to covering 50% of the substantial estimated cost, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia are insisting that it cover 100% of the bill to make the national transportation corridor future-proof.
The battle over paying for the Isthmus has three fronts: a constitutional case working its way slowly through the Nova Scotia Supreme Court, a senate sponsored bill making its way to the House of Commons this fall, and a very public shame and blame exercise between the two Premiers, Blaine Higgs and Tim Houston, and the two federal ministers associated with the project, Sean Fraser and Dominic LeBlanc.… Continue
Political leaders gather to call for urgency on Isthmus fix, and build awareness for bill S-273
Two mayors, two MLAs, and representatives from Acadian and Mi’kmaq groups gathered in person and virtually in Amherst on Tuesday afternoon to get an update from Canadian senator Jim Quinn about the future of Bill S-273, “An Act to declare the Chignecto Isthmus Dykeland System and related works to be for the general advantage of Canada.”
Quinn sponsored the bill, which would claim the Isthmus dykeland system under federal jurisdiction, but not commit specific funding to the project. It passed the Canadian senate in June and is expected to make it to the floor of the House of Commons this fall, with Conservative MP Stephen Ellis from Cumberland-Colchester as a sponsor.
Quinn says he believes S-273 has a shot to make it through the House of Commons if enough MPs are aware of it. He’s hoping the bill will at least make it past first and second reading and into committee, where witnesses can be called to talk about the risks.
“Now’s the time to start educating,” says Quinn, “because that’s what it was like in the Senate process. [It] was educating my colleagues on this area. We’re often forgotten, and a lot of people don’t know where the Chignecto Isthmus is.”
New doctor coming to Port Elgin, full time nurse practitioner for Tantramar
Horizon’s director of primary health care for Zone 1, Richard Lemay, had some good news to share on Wednesday evening at a public meeting about health care held in the Port Elgin Regional School. Lemay told the crowd of about 70 people that Horizon has signed a contract with a new physician to work at the Port Elgin and Region Health Centre starting sometime in early 2025.
The clinic lost its full time nurse practitioner this spring, and has been operating with an NP working just two days a week. That NP will wrap up their work in Port Elgin on August 31 this year, leaving a gap with no primary care provider based out of the clinic for several months. Lemay says Horizon is working to fill the gap, and is still not sure how long it will be, because it’s not yet clear exactly when the new physician will start.
“The plan is for that person to probably be here, early 2025, after Christmas,” said Lemay. “We can’t share any more details right now because he has to share information with his patients right now to inform them first. But probably this fall, we’ll be able to tell you exactly when the person is going to start. And we’ll keep you informed.”
During the Q&A session of the meeting, one resident asked about the longevity of the contract for the physician, which prompted Dr.… Continue
Leaked emails, growing numbers, and renewed calls to investigate unexplained neurological symptoms
UPDATED with response from New Brunswick Department of Health, June 12, 2024.
New Brunswick’s unexplained neurological cases are back in the news.
The Guardian newspaper published a story by Toronto-based reporter Leyland Cecco on Monday describing leaked emails from a Canadian scientist dated as recently as October 2023, expressing concern about the cause of unexplained neurological symptoms being experienced by hundreds of patients in New Brunswick and beyond.
Cecco writes that he saw emails written by Public Health Agency of Canada senior researcher Michael Coulthart:
“Coulthart, a veteran scientist who currently heads Canada’s Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Surveillance System, did not respond to a request for comment by the Guardian. But in the leaked email, he wrote that he believes an “environmental exposure – or a combination of exposures – is triggering and/or accelerating a variety of neurodegenerative syndromes” with people seemingly susceptible to different protein-misfolding ailments, including Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.
Coulthart argues this phenomenon does not easily fit within “shallow paradigms” of diagnostic pathology and the complexity of the issue has given politicians a “loophole” to conclude “nothing coherent” is going on.”
According to Cecco, Coulthart also said he had been “essentially cut off” from involvement in the issue, and that he believed the reason was political.
Then on Wednesday, the Times and Transcript published a story by Moncton-based reporter Sarah Seeley, describing an interview with Dr. Alier Marrero, the neurologist who first started reporting unexplained neurodegenerative cases in the province.… Continue
‘Infusion of investment’ needed for DTI to catch up on crumbling infrastructure, says Mitton
Dorchester business owners are worried about the extended closure of route 106 announced by the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure (DTI) this week.
DTI blocked off Route 106 where it crosses over Two Mile Brook just over one month ago, on April 1st, due to a damaged culvert with a collapsing road around it, caused by runoff from heavy rain. Since then, drivers have been taking an alternate route via Woodlawn Road and King Street.
Debbie Shea owns and operates the Village Square takeout in the heart of Dorchester. “I think it’s crazy,” says Shea, about the three month extension for the estimate fix time, posted by DTI on 511.gnb.ca. “It should be fixed by now.”
Shea says she’s noticed a difference in her business, especially on weekends. She says people don’t want to drive the detour route because it takes longer, and “the road is so bad… Woodlawn is really bad and King Street is bad.”
“It’s a big concern for this little village, for people to come in and enjoy it,” says Shea.
Kara Becker is co-owner of the Peep and Keep Ecotique in Dorchester. She says she’s shocked that “something like a main road can be out for so long.”
“I just cannot believe that it’s going to take until September to fix it,” says Becker, whose shop opened last year, and relies on tourists passing through. “What’s the delay?… Continue
‘Like a punch in the gut’: Mitton finds progress slow, contingency planning just started on Isthmus protection
The provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia have just started contingency planning for the possibility of flooding on the Chignecto Isthmus before permanent protections can be constructed.
Department of Transportation and Infrastructure (DTI) Deputy Minister Rob Taylor shared the news with Memramcook-Tantramar MLA Megan Mitton is a recent legislative committee hearing in Fredericton.
“It’s a ten year timeframe to turn something around,” Taylor told the committee. “We definitely need a solution in the interim. So I apologize that nothing was done before… but honestly, yes, the past six months, we’ve made a push on it.”
CHMA checked in with Mitton to get her reaction to the news, and updates on her other recent activities. The MLA says the fact that contingency planning had not started sooner “felt like a punch in the gut.”
The Isthmus project only received a passing mention in one of the annual reports that DTI presented to the committee in February, and Taylor admitted that progress has been slow in the two years since an engineering consultant’s report was released outlining options for the project.
“I will say that I have the same mindset that not a lot of progress has happened on this,” said Taylor. “I mandated the team to come up with a critical path schedule, that we could actually identify what activities are slipping or what can we actually get done in the interim while we are waiting for this federal funding that we’re all hearing about.”… Continue
For the record: Future of our Health Care meeting #2, October 12, 2023
About 60 people gathered in the Crabtree Auditorium on the Mount Allison campus in Sackville on Thursday, October 12, 2023 to hear updates from the leadership of the Horizon Health Network, and participate in a Q&A. Topics covered included Sackville’s new primary care clinic, the status of services in the Sackville Memorial Hospital emergency department, an update on Beal University Canada’s lease of space in the hospital, and the future of a local role in health care decision-making.
CHMA was there to record the proceedings:
Mitton on possible early election call, climate change hearings, and $1 billion surplus
Memramcook Tantramar MLA Megan Mitton says she’s not sure if Premier Blaine Higgs will call an election this week, and says it’s a “challenging situation”, especially in the Tantramar region where there’s been six elections since 2018.
CHMA spoke with Mitton last week from her office in Sackville:
If Higgs does call an early election this week, residents of Tantramar will be voting in a new riding, after the New Brunswick electoral commission changed boundaries to split Memramcook-Tantramar, returning Memramcook to a Dieppe riding, and leaving Tantramar on its own, as the smallest riding by population in the province. Mitton says she will be running in Tantramar, a perhaps unsurprising decision considering Sackville is her hometown, and where she first took on political office as town councillor.
Last month, Mitton and her Green Party colleague Kevin Arsenault were named deputy leaders of the party. Mitton says she’s honoured to have the title, which means the potential for a “bigger leadership role within the party,” something that might come in handy in an election. “The plan is for me to be able to support other Greens to be able to head to Fredericton,” says Mitton.
Green leader David Coon also told reporters recently that in case of no clear majority after the next election, the New Brunswick Greens would not consider supporting a Higgs government, but would consider doing so with the Liberals under Susan Holt. “The key thing is that we could never support Blaine Higgs’ PCs,” says Mitton.… Continue
MLAs question health officials on handling of neurological disorder investigation
Memramcook-Tantramar MLA Megan Mitton and her colleagues on the New Brunswick legislature’s Public Accounts committee had a chance to pepper deputy Health minister Eric Beaulieu with questions on Tuesday.
The department of health was before the committee to discuss their 2021-22 annual report, and MLAs took the opportunity to ask questions about a number of health issues, including the past and ongoing handling of cases of neurological degenerative symptoms of unknown origin in the province.
While MLA and former Health Minister Dorothy Shephard wondered why the investigation into the mysterious symptoms hadn’t been put to bed, Mitton’s line of questioning tended towards asking for more public disclosure of decision making processes.
Mitton asked Beaulieu about new involvement from the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), who are sending two epidemiologists to the province to help Dr. Alier Marrero complete reporting on between 100 and 200 neurological cases that the neurologist has flagged as having no known cause. Beaulieu said the two epidemiologists would be arriving in late September, and he told Mitton that everything that can be made public about their work, will be made public.
Mitton later asked Beaulieu to explain in detail why communications between federal and provincial scientists were abruptly shut down in May of 2021, and referred to results of Right to Information (RTI) requests made by media and the advocacy group Bloodwatch.… Continue
New hires, plans for Sackville clinic, and plenty of concerns up for discussion at local healthcare meeting
Two years afters cuts were announced due to nursing staff shortages, the Sackville Memorial Hospital emergency room is still on reduced hours, but Horizon Health Network CEO Margaret Melanson is continuing with her message that the network’s goal is to return to full 24/7 service.
Melanson had a chance to deliver that message in person last night at a Future of Our Healthcare meeting organized by Memramcook-Tantramar MLA Megan Mitton.
About 120 people gathered at the Tantramar Civic Centre to ask questions of Melanson and members of her management team.
“I will say that tonight feels different than February 2020,” Mitton told the crowd, referencing a previous attempt by Horizon management to reduce services at the Sackville hospital. “I know a lot of you showed up in different ways and sometimes in the streets to push back on that,” said Mitton, ”and many people have been organizing ever since.”
Melanson shared some updates on the hospital front, including the recent hiring of an anesthesiologist to cater to surgeries happening in the one functioning Sackville operating room. She also told the crowd that a new emergency department physician would be starting soon. For awhile now, the original nursing shortage that caused the service reduction has been replaced by a doctor shortage. That means the imminent hiring of a new ER doc “is great progress,” said Melanson, “as we do have the plan to be restoring your emergency department services on a 24/7 basis.”… Continue