Online ‘inventory’ takes stock of natural features in Sackville and its watersheds
Listen to Tantramar Report for Monday, July 11, 2022:
Thousands of honey bees removed from Sackville Waterfowl Park
Thousands of honey bees descended on the Sackville Waterfowl Park this week, before a local couple with a backyard beekeeping operation removed the swarm.
Jeff Allen and Tasha Hawkes own and operate Izzy’s Bizzys Apiary and Natural Bee Products in the Midgic area.
On Tuesday, they got a call from the Town of Sackville after someone spotted a swarm that appeared to be hanging from the branch of a tree.
“When I went to inspect it, I quickly found there was probably about 25 to 30,000 bees,” said Allen, who obtained a master beekeeper certification in 2020.
“It’s deceiving because it looks like they’re hanging off a branch, but they’re actually hanging off each other on a very small piece of that branch.”
Allen spoke to CHMA on Thursday about honey bees, backyard beekeeping and threats to pollinators posed by climate change.
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Beekeepers remove swarm of thousands from from Waterfowl Park
Listen to Tantramar Report for Friday, July 8, 2022:
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Mount Allison returns Indigenous artifacts to Mi’kmaq community
Listen to Tantramar Report for Friday, July 1, 2022.
‘I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t quiet’: Student plans protest in response to US Supreme Court decision on abortion
Pro-choice activists plan to march in Sackville on Sunday to protest the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe versus Wade.
That ruling means women no longer have a legal right to abortion in the United States.
Jenna Auguscinski, a student at Mount Allison University who is organizing this weekend’s march, says she fears criminalizing abortion will increase the suicide rate among women.
“I think it’s a huge issue and I think people are being pretty quiet in Canada about it, so I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t quiet about it,” she said.
Here in New Brunswick, the provincial government’s policy on abortion has also attracted criticism.
The province only subsidizes procedural or surgical abortions in three hospitals in New Brunswick, two in Moncton and one in Bathurst.
The Medical Services Payment Act, a regulation restricts those procedures to approved hospitals. Activists have called on the province to scrap that regulation.
“In New Brunswick, if you need an abortion, and you can’t receive it in a hospital, the province doesn’t pay for it,” said Tasia Alexopoulos, Mount Allison’s Sexual Violence Prevention and Education Coordinator. “That can be $600 to $1,200 out of pocket.”
Listen to the full interview with Auguscinski and Alexopoulos from Jun. 29, 2022:
The federal government previously withheld $140,000 in health transfer funds to penalize the province for violating the Canada Health Act over inadequate access to abortion services.… Continue
‘We didn’t sell to a corporation knowingly’: Family was unaware buyer wanted to turn home into quarry
A wooded acreage in a rural New Brunswick village is slated to become the site of a rock quarry.
But Kim Meyerdierks wants area residents to know that wasn’t her family’s intention when they sold the property in 2019.
“We didn’t sell to a corporation knowingly,” the Bangor, Me., resident said in an interview.
Opponents of the proposed quarry in the village of Calhoun believe it could destroy their small community, which is located about 30 kilometres northwest of Sackville, CHMA previously reported.
Her family has roots in the Memramcook area going back several generations. They decided to sell the property after her aunt, June Burmeister, died in 2014.
They hoped to sell the property to a family that would take care of the land.
“We wanted to make sure we weren’t selling to a corporation,” she said. “That was our only stipulation to our realtor. We were just interested in families or individual property buyers.”
When Alain Belanger of Grand Falls bought the property in 2019, they didn’t know he was the co-owner of an asphalt paving company that operates throughout Atlantic Canada.… Continue
‘We didn’t sell to a corporation knowingly’: Family unaware land would be slated for rock quarry
Listen to Tantramar Report for Monday, June 27, 2022:
Mi’kmaq leaders, top adviser quit N.B. systemic racism commission
A top adviser to New Brunswick’s systemic racism commissioner announced his resignation on Tuesday, just as a group of Indigenous leaders withdrew from the controversial commission.
Robert Tay-Burroughs, senior advisor to commissioner Manju Varma, published his resignation letter on Twitter, saying he felt “troubled these last few weeks by the false pretences under which we are expected to do our work.”
He also said “it remains unclear” whether the provincial government can respect the commissioner’s independence or intends to accept her recommendations in good faith.
Indigenous groups have criticized the Tory-appointed commission, calling instead for a public inquiry, which would have the power to compel the government to produce information.
“We were skeptical of the process, we’d asked for an inquiry into the justice system in New Brunswick from the get-go,” said Chief George Ginnish of Natoaganeg, or Eel Ground First Nation.
He’s co-chair of Mi’gmawe’l Tplu’taqnn Inc., or MTI, an organization representing nine Mi’kmaq communities in New Brunswick, who announced this week they would no longer participate in the commission.
Minister of Aboriginal Affairs Arlene Dunn downplayed the level of division between Indigenous communities and the province this week.… Continue
Relations between First Nations and Higgs government ‘extremely poor’ as Mi’kmaq chiefs withdraw from commission
Listen to Tantramar Report for Wednesday, June 22, 2022:
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‘You can never afford to buy them’: EVs out of reach for struggling taxi businesses
The owners of Sackville’s two taxi businesses say they’re struggling with the high price of gas, but electric vehicles remain out of reach financially.
“This is not Irving Oil that makes a million dollars a day,” says Larry Parsons, owner of Sackville Cab. “You make enough to have a car that’s fit for the road.”
His company has a fleet of four Mazda5 compact minivans. The four-cylinder engine vehicles seat six people, and he says they’re dependable. One of those vehicles isn’t being used at all as demand has dropped for taxis.
Danny Mitton, owner of Squires Courtesy Cab, is the sole driver for his small business.
His fleet includes two Toyota Priuses. He keeps one of the hybrid vehicles on standby, filled with gas.
He says gas and insurance prices are killing his business, but he isn’t convinced EVs are a viable solution, at least for now..
For one thing, he says they’re too expensive even with a rebate program introduced by the provincial government last year.
New Brunswick followed other provinces in introducing a rebate of up to $5,000 for eligible vehicles, to match a federal rebate, for a total of up to $10,000 in rebates.
CHMA asked the provincial government whether those efforts should go further to protect people from runaway energy costs.
In an email, government spokesperson Nick Brown said: “We understand the impact that rising energy costs have had across New Brunswick and will continue to look for ways to help mitigate these rising costs.… Continue