Tantramar Council chambers erupted in conflict Tuesday evening, after a resident who was denied the right to present to council on a technicality got up to the podium and asked again to be heard.
Sarah Kardash of Sackville Ceasefire Now says she arrived at town hall at about 6:10pm to sign up to deliver a two minute presentation during the public meeting, which she believed started at 7pm, as usual. But when she arrived at town hall, council was already in a closed, in camera session that had started at 6pm.
Kardash waited for the closed session to end, and at about 6:40pm, while council was in recess, asked town clerk Donna Beal to take her name down to speak at the upcoming public session. Kardash says Beal refused her request based on the fact that council had already approved the agenda for the session, shortly after 6pm, and shortly before council closed its doors to the public.
With a gallery full of about 40 Sackville Ceasefire Now supporters—who had just made their way to town hall after a gathering in Bill Johnstone Park—Kardash got up to address council as she had planned, during the public presentations section of the meeting. As Kardash started to speak, she was immediately shut down by Mayor Andrew Black, who proceeded to put the meeting into recess, and leave the room, along with four other councillors.
Here’s an edited audio clip of what the incident sounded like from inside council chambers. This audio features a recording from the town hall audio system, and then the tail end of Sarah Kardash’s speech recorded in the room, after the sound system was turned off:
The Mayor and councillors Josh Goguen, Barry Hicks, Matt Estabrooks, and Greg Martin all got up and left council chambers for about five minutes, while members of Sackville Ceasefire Now stood in the gallery with their backs to council, an act meant to symbolize the lack of response the coalition has received from their municipal representatives.
Councillor Debbie Wiggins Colwell was not present at the meeting, and Councillors Allison Butcher, Bruce Phinney and Michael Tower remained seated and did not leave council chambers during the action.
After several minutes, Sackville Ceasefire Now members filed out, and Mayor and councillors returned to their seats and restarted the meeting.
Sarah Kardash told reporters outside that she had intended to ask council to endorse a letter to federal leaders asking for concrete action on an end to violence in Gaza, something that Sackville Ceasefire Now has asked previously. In January, the group presented a petition signed by 253 people asking for a similar resolution from council. She said the group has heard from three councillors in response, but not from any others or the Mayor.
“We’re sick by the fact that they are really not engaging with us,” said Kardash. “We had one comment from Councillor Butcher. We have never had a question [at council]. They haven’t discussed it in council, they haven’t debated it. They just sit there, staring at us with blank faces.”
Kardash says the group has been making repeated attempts to engage with council processes, but, “we’re met with deafening silence.”
After Tuesday’s meeting Mayor Black acknowledged that no councillors have put forward a motion regarding the group’s request. “Nobody has been willing to make that notice of motion,” said Black. “So for me, if I was in that ceasefire group, I would think that that would mean that there’s no interest to pursue it.”
‘A fine technical point’
Kardash said the decision to deny her a spot during the public presentations section of the meeting was over “a fine technical point.” Black said the decision simply adhered to Tantramar’s procedural by-law, put in place by provincial consultant Chad Peters during local government reform.
“The procedural by-law says that you have to show up before the council meeting starts,” Black told CHMA. “The council meeting started at six. They showed up at seven… So the council meeting had already started. We were in recess.”
The text of the procedural bylaw includes just a short paragraph on how to sign up for a two-minute council presentation, which does not seem to specify at what point names can be added to the presentation list. It reads: “Individuals or groups wishing to address Council by appearing at the meeting with no previous registration should sign in at the door and will be called in the order they register.”
At past sessions of council where additional public presenters have been added, meeting agendas were approved by council without any modification to reflect the new presenters.
Kardash says she feels the coalition has made every effort to follow council procedures, and she feels council has a duty to at least discuss and consider the coalition’s request.
“All we’re asking is for this council to help raise our voices,” said Kardash. “Over 200 people signed our petition, over 250 people came out to our rally in November, we’ve had approximately 50 people showing up to our vigils at the council meetings every month. What more do we have to do to convince this council that this issue is an important one to residents in this town?”
Kardash addresses concerns over anti-Semitism
In a previous presentation to council, a Sackville resident expressed concern with the rise of anti-Semitic acts in the country, and told council she was alarmed by chants during a Sackville Ceasefire Now rally late last year. CHMA asked Kardash how she might respond to similar concerns that Tantramar councillors might have.
“We have been very explicit in all of our events, vigils, rallies, and communications,” says Kardash, “that we fundamentally oppose anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and racism of all kinds.” Kardash says she has not witnessed anything anti-Semitic at a Sackville Ceasefire Now event.
“I myself am Jewish, and I’m a member of Sackville Ceasefire Now, calling for a ceasefire,” said Kardash. “There are many, many Jews of conscience who are raising their voices and insisting that criticism of Israel, that anti-Zionism, is not anti-Semitism.”
To explain her devotion to a ceasefire, Kardash cited the mounting death toll in Gaza, which according to reports from the Gaza Health Ministry now exceed 30,000. “People are starving to death. Children are starving to death,” says Kardash. “When I see these images of children in Gaza who are starving, it makes me think of the images that I saw in my Jewish education that I had as a child, when we were watching films about the Holocaust, and saw what was happening to Jews and others.”
“To think that calling for an end to this kind of violence and suffering could be anti-Semitic,” said Kardash. ”No, it’s not.”
