Tantramar Report: Dangerous driving at NB-NS border, Mt A to close for Orange Shirt Day, and honouring Sackville veterans on town streets
On Wednesday’s Tantramar Report:
Mount Allison University has announced it will close down to mark Canada’s newest statutory holiday. September 30th, widely known as Orange Shirt Day, has been named the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and declared a federal statutory holiday, meaning all federally regulated public and private employees will get the day off. The holiday is meant to honour First Nations, Inuit and Métis survivors and their families and communities, and ensure the public commemoration of their history and the legacy of residential schools. Mount Allison says it will offer a number of activities and learning opportunities in the days leading up to September 30th, to inspire reflection on Truth and Reconciliation.
On Saturday, the Nova Scotia RCMP gave out 40 tickets and warnings at the New Brunswick – Nova Scotia border for speeding and related aggressive driving offences. Corporal Mike Carter says there was an extra enforcement push after Nova Scotia border workers reported dangerous driving behaviours in people entering and leaving the border area.
Vitalité Health Network is hosting a drop-in vaccination clinic in Sackville today at the Tantramar Veterans’ Memorial Civic Centre, from 12:30pm to 7:30pm. The clinic will offer both Pfizer and Moderna doses, and appointments are not required. On Thursday, the Corner Drug Store will run a drop in clinic offering doses of the Pfizer vaccine from 10am to 6pm.… Continue
Sackville town hall gets greener with expanded rooftop garden
Hear Amanda Marlin and Fiona Black talk about the expanded green roof on Tantramar Report, back on August 4, 2021:
Strawberries, blueberries and native wild berries. Chives, thyme, oregano, sage and lavender. Echinacea, yarrow, and black-eyed susans. The garden at Sackville Town Hall is chock-a-block full of edibles and native plants, some of which will hopefully go to help supply the Sackville Food Bank. But it’s not the plants in the garden that are necessarily remarkable, it’s the location: on the roof.
Sackville town hall has had a green roof since it was built more than 10 years ago, and this summer the green was expanded to cover another 1900 square feet.
Amanda Marlin, director of EOS Eco-Energy, helped plant the garden, and also secured the funding to make it happen.
The town signed an agreement with EOS to expand the green roof back in November when the organization first applied to Environment and Climate Change Canada for funding. EOS also did a fundraiser through the Small Change Fund, a crowdfunding platform, “so local residents helped contribute to the green roof project as well,” says Marlin.
Mount Allison is also involved.… Continue
How to safely view Thursday’s solar eclipse
If you wake up early enough on Thursday, and take some precautions, you will be able to see a partial eclipse of the sun in progress. It’s not exactly a rare event, but an impressive one, says Mount Allison astronomer Catherine Lovekin.
Hear Catherine Lovekin in conversation on Tantramar Report:
Barring cloudy skies, Thursday’s annular solar eclipse, “will be visible as a partial eclipse from Sackville,” says Lovekin. “So we’re not in the path of totality—as total as it gets for an annular eclipse—but it is going to be visible as a partial eclipse. The caveat there is that it starts very, very early. And so the eclipse is over by about 7:30, 7:45 in the morning. So you’re going to have to get up super early.”
Lovekin says if it’s not in progress when the sun rises it will start soon after. “If you’re out there about 6 o’clock in the morning you will get a good view,” says Lovekin.
But that view should come with serious precautions. “It’s really, really important not to look at the sun,” says Lovekin.
Because so much of the sun is blocked out during an eclipse, it seems less bright, which means your instinct to avert your eyes will not kick in. “It doesn’t hurt your eyes immediately like it normally does if you look at the sun,” says Lovekin, “but it’s still so bright, it can cause serious eye damage if you look at it for more than a second or two.”… Continue
Talking ticks with Dr. Vett Lloyd
Even though Vett Lloyd spends a good amount of her time studying ticks and the diseases they carry around, she’s a strong proponent of getting outdoors this spring and summer.
The Mount Allison professor and researcher runs the Lloyd Tick Lab studying vector biology, primarily focusing on ticks.
Hear an interview with Vett Lloyd from Tantramar Report on May 28:
“The ticks are here,” says Lloyd. “They’re not going anywhere. We just have to get used to them and practice some really easy things to keep ourselves safer.“
With that in mind, Lloyd shared some ‘best practices’ when it comes to keeping yourself safe from ticks.
BUG SPRAY
“Bug spray is really designed for mosquitoes,” says Lloyd, “but there are some sprays that say they’re good for ticks. They will give you partial protection.” Lloyd says just “follow the instructions on the label.”
TICK-REPELLENT CLOTHING
“If you’re working in the bush, if you’re hunting, camping, that sort of long exposure, you can get clothing that has permethrin—a tick repellent—embedded in it. That works quite well,” says Lloyd.
RUBBER BOOTS
“If you’re just tromping around in long grass, and you’re not particularly worried about being fashion-forward, rubber boots work remarkably well,” says Lloyd. “Something a farmer once said to me when I started this work is ticks don’t like rubber. I haven’t tested that scientifically, but from my experience, it actually does seem to work.”
DAILY TICK CHECKS
“Probably the most important thing you can do is a tick check,” says Lloyd.… Continue
Public health doctors among those recognized with honorary degrees from Mt A
Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Jennifer Russell is being awarded an honorary degree from Mount Allison University this year. And she’s not the only public health official to be recognized. Dr. Bonnie Henry, provincial Health Officer for British Columbia and a Mount Allison alum, will also be among the six recipients.
Others 2021 honorary degree recipients include:
- Chief Terry Paul of the Membertou First Nation in Nova Scotia,
- Dominic Leblanc, longtime member of parliament for Beausejour and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs,
- Annette Verschuren, Mount Allison alum and CEO of energy storage corporation NRStor Inc.,
- and Pierre Lassonde, former chairman of the Franco-Nevada gold mining corporation, and philanthropist.
Lassonde’s name will soon be a familiar one on campus, as his family foundation recently donated $5 million towards Mount Allison fine arts program, which is now name the Pierre Lassonde School of Fine Arts.
“These six individuals are leaders in their respective fields, including medicine, business, government, and community development,” says Mount Allison president Jean-Paul Boudreau in a news release June 3. “Their commitment to the public good, through their leadership and actions over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic and throughout their careers, is exceptional. We are honoured to welcome them to the Mount Allison community as our newest honorary degree recipients.”
Recipients will be formally recognized at planned in-person Convocation ceremonies on the Mount Allison campus in Spring 2022, along with their 2020 counterparts.
Honorary degrees are awarded to those who are nationally or internationally recognized in their fields, those who have demonstrated service to Mount Allison or the wider community, or prominent public persons.… Continue
Mt A hikes tuition another 3%, allocates more financial aid in latest budget
Mount Allison has released its budget for next year, and it includes a 3% hike in tuition and residence fees. Annual tuition for the next academic year will be $9,440 for Canadian students, and $19,040 for international students.
CHMA spoke with newly elected Mount Allison students’ union president Charlie Burke, to get her take on the new budget.
Burke is “disheartened” to see the tuition hike, but also appreciative of some items in the budget. “Financial aid is getting quite a big increase of over $700,000, and we’ve got some of our budget advocacy asks,” says Burke. “But overall, I think we’re still quite concerned about how tuition is going to affect students.”
The budget includes a 14% increase in funding for student financial aid. In a news release, Mount Allison says funding has also been allocated for key student services areas including international recruitment, sexual violence response and prevention, and diversity, equity, and inclusion on campus.
“One of our asks was higher compensation for RAs and assistant dons in residence,” says Burke, “and those were increased by $1,000, which was really great to see, because that’s something that we’ve been advocating for a very long time.”
“And we saw an investment into EDI [equity, diversity and inclusion], for the Black Student Advisor position. So that position now is year round, and fully funded by the university. And as well, they’re also investing some of that money into sexual violence prevention.”… Continue
Local counsellor advises how to support survivors of sexual violence
Content Warning: The following story discusses sexual violence.
A social media post featuring grad photos of student Michelle Roy, which call out Mount Allison’s practices around handling sexual assault on campus, has ignited an online and on-campus movement.
Approximately 400 people attended a protest in front of the Wallace McCain Centre on Thursday, November 12 to demonstrate concern for said practices and show support to survivors.
Over 300 stories of on-campus sexual violence have been published on social media, which include experiences of university services and staff mishandling cases of assault or harassment.
CHMA reached out to local support counsellor, Joanna Perkin, to discuss how one can support a survivor of sexual violence and how survivors may care for themselves while the topic is in the spotlight.
Perkin is a woman’s support counsellor for Autumn House in Amherst, and mainly works with women who have experienced intimate partner violence, but also many survivors of sexual assault.
Perkin is not speaking on behalf of or representing Autumn House in this interview.
She advises that untrained individuals have the potential to inadvertently cause harm to survivors of sexual violence, and offers the following expertise:
Joanna Perkin: I think that peer support and support from your friends and your family and your loved ones… that is essential to ensuring that a survivor feels heard and supported, and can kind of start their healing process.… Continue
After student voter suppression, union calls for more training and an apology
Student vote suppression can’t be rectified, but lessons will be learned for next time, says Elections NB
A Mount Allison student leader says she’s heard mostly negative feedback from students about participating in last Monday’s provincial election in Sackville.
Mount Allison Students’ Union VP Sydney Thorburn set up a survey last week asking students to share their experience voting. The survey asks when and where students voted, how satisfied they were with the experience, and includes space for students to give a detailed description of their experience, if they feel comfortable. Thorburn says the intention is to bring those testimonials from students directly to Elections NB.
“We don’t feel comfortable with ourselves if we let this go and don’t follow up with it,” says Thorburn. “Just so much unfortunate and outright bad things happened on Monday towards students—that suppressed the student vote—so that we feel the strong need to follow up with them.”
Thorburn says she hopes that future elections will see more training for staff at polling stations, especially training focussed on the rules as they apply to university students.
On Monday, dozens and possibly hundreds of students were either turned away or advised that they were breaking the law if they proceeded to vote.… Continue
Students concerned about rising costs for mostly online learning
By Erica Butler and Meg Cunningham
Mount Allison students will be facing more than just increased tuition costs in September, says Student Union president Jon Ferguson.
Ferguson is concerned for students experiencing hundreds to thousands more in unexpected residence fees on top of the tuition increase.
He explains that students are no longer able to share rooms due to COVID-19 risks.
Click to listen:
“There’s a lot of students that were going to be in double or triple rooms and they had to upgrade to single rooms. In certain scenarios it would be somewhere from $500 to $1000 for a lot of students that would have to upgrade. If we’re talking about the worst-case scenario, you’re looking at an upgrade of well over $2000. I think it was closer to $2500 or actually even higher for one student living in residence for those eight or nine months.”
Mount Allison’s media relations officer Laura Dillman says students who are impacted “will be able to apply for bursary assistance based on financial need.”
Mount Allison student Alison S. is concerned about the increased tuition fees for herself and fellow students.
Alison could not find a summer job due to COVID-19.
She is relying exclusively on student loans to pay for the increased tuition and fees this year, which she says is, “very unsettling.”… Continue
July 10: Students concerned about rising costs at Mount A
On today’s CHMA daily news:
- Students concerned about rising costs in residence fees and tuition;
- Sackville town council to consider support for two summer events;
- Chiefs disappointed in Premier after meeting on systemic racism inquiry;
- New Brunswick’s border form is now online;
- Assault at the border weigh scale;
- and the COVID numbers update.
Click to listen:
COVID numbers
New Brunswick Public Health reported one new case of COVID-19 on Wednesday.
A man in his forties from Zone 3, the large region surrounding Fredericton, has tested positive.
Officials say it is a travel-related case, and the man is self-isolating.
Just over 1900 test results were reported in the province in the past week, about 400 short of the threshold recommended by Chief Medical Officer of Health Jennifer Russell in May.
Prince Edward Island officials also reported one new case of COVID-19 yesterday.
Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Heather Morrison says the latest case is a close contact of someone in the cluster of cases discovered last weekend.
A man in his 20’s originally tested negative, but then developed mild symptoms Wednesday and was tested again.
PEI now has six active cases of COVID-19.
Nova Scotia announced no new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday.
The province has four active cases.
Worldwide, daily new cases are still on the rise, with the US reporting the most—over 60,000—new cases yesterday.… Continue