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‘It heals your heart’: Chief Knockwood on the joy of the Amlamgog Youth Powwow

Junior head dancer Xander Pictou at the 2024 Amlamgog Youth Powwow. Photo: Zachery Dubé

People were packed into the Dorchester Veterans Community Centre on Saturday, to watch and participate in the 2nd annual Amlamgog First Nation Youth Powwow.

CHMA stopped in to hear the grand entry, featuring youth dancers from Amlamgog and around New Brunswick, and spoke to Amlamgog Chief Rebecca Knockwood about the joy of the event, as well as the pain of remembering the Indigenous children who suffered and died in Canada’s residential school system.

The powwow started off with an emotional moment of reflection as the crowd listened to the song Remember Me, by residential school survivor Randy Wood, while toddlers and young children ran around among parents and caregivers.

Headdancer Abby Brooks helps a child at the 2024 Amlamgog Youth Powwow. Photo: Zachery Dubé

“It’s really, really sad, but it’s also fulfilling and happy to know that we have the little generation coming up,” said Knockwood. “It brings my heart so much joy to know that [the powwow] is growing.”

Amlamgog chief Rebecca Knockwood at the 2024 Youth Powwow. Photo: Zachery Dubé

Amlamgog cultural coordinator Nicole Porter put together the event, and Elder Cynthia Sewell led the crowd by singing the Mi’kmaq Hounour Song. Youth drum group ThunderFeather from Wagmatcook First Nation took turns providing the heartbeat for the event with Sipu Boyz from Metapenagiag.… Continue

Unleashing the ‘significant power’ of seniors to call for action on the climate crisis

Sackville resident Penny Mott is part of a group of seniors concerned about the climate crisis, and planning to show that concern in a rally and awareness event on Tuesday in Sackville.

“Many of us are sitting in our homes and we’re distressed about with the dramatic climatic changes we’re experiencing,” says Mott. That’s why Mott is helping organize a Seniors For Climate event at the Bill Johnstone Memorial Park on Tuesday, October 1st, from 11am to 1pm. The event is open to all ages, and will also include an opportunity to learn about green burials.

“We are planning to have a real call to action about the climate situation in our area,” says Mott. “Rising sea levels at our coastlines, unusual hot days, long periods of drought with sudden and intense rainfall, and the worry of very intense hurricanes coming up the eastern seaboard… There is a real reason, too many reasons, for us to stand up and tell the political leaders and the corporations in our country that we need to have more intense action addressing the climate.”

The event is part of Seniors For Climate, a national initiative to coincide with National Seniors Day on October 1st, with over 70 events happening across the country.

In addition to the rally, Mott says there will be information available about alternatives to cremation.… Continue

Amlamgog Youth Powwow this weekend expands with youth social and community feast

UPDATE: The Amlamgog Youth Powwow on Saturday September 28 is moving inside the Dorchester Veterans Community Centre at 4955 Main Street, Dorchester. Grand entry is scheduled for 12pm.

For the second year in a row, Amlamgog First Nation is hosting a youth pow-wow, featuring young dancers and drummers from around Mi’kmaqi. This year, the open invitation event has expanded to a second day, adding an evening youth social on Friday and community feast Saturday evening at the Dorchester Veterans Community Centre.

Amlamgog cultural coordinator Nicole Porter says the powwow helps Amlamgog youth get inspired by their culture, and helps the wider community learn and reflect on the meaning of the ‘peace and friendship’ enshrined in the treaties of the 1700s. “What better way to share our rich culture than with a powwow,” says Porter. “It’s coming together in friendship, sharing the space, sharing each other’s culture, just as they did in the past when they Europeans first arrived on our shore. Let’s start that again.”

The 2024 Amlamgog Youth Pow wow is happening Saturday at 88 Bernard Trail in Fort Folly, with the grand entry starting at noon. On Friday evening at the Dorchester Veterans Community Centre there’s a youth social including a supper, demonstration of the Mi’kmaq game Waltes, and Mi’kmaq bingo. Saturday’s powwow wraps up around 4pm and will be followed by a community feast at the Dorchester VCC on Saturday evening.… Continue

Increased height allowance requested to allow for new 7-story building in downtown Sackville

A construction crane currently set up behind 131 Main Street in Sackville might just remain part of the town’s skyline a bit longer, if zoning changes go through to make way for a new project involving local developer John Lafford.

Lafford and his partner Mike Wilson, CEO of the AIL Group of Companies, are hoping to build a seven storey building at the corner of York Street and Ford Lane. But the site is in Sackville’s mixed use zone, which only allows for buildings of up to 50 feet, or roughly five storeys.

That’s why Lafford has applied to Plan 360 for a change to the zoning bylaw, expanding the allowable height for the mixed use zone to 75 feet. Planner Lori Bickford presented the request to Tantramar council at their committee of the whole meeting on Monday. Council will decided whether or not to proceed with the request on October 8.

CHMA caught up with Lafford after the presentation to hear more about his plans:

“We’re hoping to be able to build a seven storey building that would have some commercial activity in the ground floor, and then there would be six stories above with residents,” says Lafford. He predicts about 95 units in the building, with “a mix of larger, down-sizer units on the corners, and then there’ll be some smaller units, more affordable, on the interior of the building.”… Continue

Mt A economist recommends 1% HST for municipalities to fix funding shortfalls, reliance on residential taxes

New Brunswick’s municipalities have been asking for changes to the system by which they fund themselves for years, and now a report by a Mount Allison economist is helping them make their case.

In Toward a New Fiscal Framework for New Brunswick Municipalities, Dr. Craig Brett outlines the financial issues facing local governments, and recommends a diversified income for municipalities through an allocation of 1% of the provincial HST.

Brett stopped by CHMA to explain his research and conclusions. You can listen to the full interview here:

“The need for municipal financial reform is in response to things that happened slowly,” says Brett. “It’s one of these things that’s not a problem, not a problem, still not a problem… and all of a sudden it is a problem. Even though it’s the same trends that are going on.”

Brett says there are two big trends that have led the province and its municipalities to this point. “Number one is that the the share of money that municipalities get from the province by way of grants has gone down considerably,” says Brett.

In the 1980s, municipalities got about 40% of their funding from the province, says Brett. Then by the turn of the millennium, that was down to 16-17%, and now municipalities get just 5-6% of their funding from unconditional provincial grants.… Continue

NS, NB MLAs join forces to call for federal public health enquiry into unexplained neurological conditions

Two MLAs from neighbouring provinces are calling for a joint public health investigation into the “troubling surge in patients presenting with an atypical neurodegenerative illness” in the region.

Memramcook-Tantramar MLA (and now candidate for Tantramar) Megan Mitton has long called for the New Brunswick government to look into what has caused the health issues faced by hundreds of patients referred to Moncton-based neurologist Dr. Alier Marrero. And now Nova Scotia MLA Elizabeth Smith-MCrossin has joined Mitton in a call for the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) to lead an investigation into the cases.

“We have constituents on both sides of the border that are being impacted,” said Mitton on Tuesday. “PHAC has said, well, this is New Brunswick jurisdiction, so we’re letting them lead. But this is cross-jurisdictional. This is happening in Nova Scotia as well. And so we’re calling on PHAC to step in and lead this investigation, and look in both provinces—and there may be others as well—to see what’s going on.”

Smith-McCrossin says she has reached out to Nova Scotia’s chief medical officer Dr. Robert Strang, and is hoping both provincial public health offices will collaborate on the issue.

“I’m worried that our provincial medical officer of health may not be fully aware of the situation,” says Smith-McCrossin, “because our patients are being seen next door.” Some Nova Scotians live closer to Moncton than they do Halifax, and so referrals are sometimes made to New Brunswick specialists.… Continue

A new Battle of Chignecto sees provinces and federal government dodging the bill to fortify the Isthmus

Federal infrastructure minister Dominic LeBlanc and Premier Blaine Higgs at a news conference Tuesday, June 17, 2023. Image: Zoom screencap

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

Sackville Pride Parade creates ‘special and meaningful’ moments for first-time marchers

Sackville showed its Pride last Friday afternoon, with a brief but well attended double flag raising and march from the Mount Allison campus down to the Tantramar municipal office on Main Street.

CHMA was there and brings you some of the voices from the crowd of over 100 Pride marchers, starting off with organizers Marshall Campbell and Hannah Saulnier, from Mount Allison’s Catalyst student group, who helped organize the event.

“Pride is really important to me because it shows that we’re not afraid of the people that feel that we don’t belong or that we don’t have a right to exist and to express ourselves,” said Campbell. “So I’m really happy to see how many people came out today.”

Catalyst members Marshall Campbell and Hannah Saulnier. Photo: Erica Butler

The all-ages crowd was a mix of Pride veterans and first-timers, many of whom were moved by the outpouring of support and love for the queer community.

“I have lived in areas that have been extremely bigoted and homophobic,” said first year Mount Allison student Catherine, who was attending her first ever Pride event. “I never thought I’d be able to experience this, and now I am.”

“It makes me very emotional to just see people from every age demographic,” said Catherine. “It’s really inspiring and really hopeful.”

Former Sackville councillor Bill Evans and Sackville United Church member Frank Oulton came out to support Pride.

… Continue

On-campus polling will help ensure “everybody who can vote, can vote” in new Tantramar riding

Tantramar returning officer Garth Zwicker stands in front of the Tantramar riding electoral map. Photo: Erica Butler

During the last provincial election in September 2020, confusion reigned at the Sackville polling station, with Elections NB workers mistakenly turning away eligible student voters throughout the polling day. Some students told CHMA at the time that they had to try multiple times to get through the voting process without being turned away. Others left in frustration, without voting at all.

It’s a situation Garth Zwicker is confident can be avoided this October 21, as the province’s electors get another chance to weigh in on who forms the government of New Brunswick.

Zwicker is the returning officer for the riding of Tantramar, the smallest riding by population in the province since the electoral map was redrawn last spring.

CHMA caught up with Zwicker last week at the Tantramar returning office at 95 Bridge Street, to find out more about how voting will take place this time around in Tantramar.

The Tantramar returning office will officially open at 10am on Thursday September 19, the day the writ is scheduled to drop, triggering the 2024 provincial election. Electors should have voting cards by October 7.

On election day, October 21, nine different polling stations will open across the riding (in Murray Corner, Baie Verte, Cape Tormentine, Port Elgin, Sackville, Dorchester, Midgic, Westcock, and Mount Whatley) in addition to the returning office at 95 Bridge Street.… Continue

DTI minister cancels Wheaton Bridge meeting with Mitton and Black ‘while staff identify the best option’

Transportation and Infrastructure minister Richard Ames has cancelled a meeting planned with local officials to talk about the prognosis for the Wheaton Covered Bridge on High Marsh Road in Sackville.

Mayor Andrew Black broke the news at Monday’s Tantramar council meeting, telling council that the virtual meeting with himself, MLA Megan Mitton, Ames and deputy minister Rob Taylor was cancelled by DTI just 45 minutes before it was scheduled on Monday.

“MLA Mitton complained before I had a chance to,” said Black, “and the response from the minister’s office was that there was no need for the call, because there was no update at this time for what was going to happen with the Wheaton Covered Bridge.”

CHMA caught up with Megan Mitton on Tuesday, and the MLA said she was beyond disappointed at the last minute cancellation from the minister, but was maintaining communication with DTI staff tasked with coming up with solutions for the structural issues with the 108-year old bridge.

“This is very important to a lot of different people,” said Mitton, “whether it be farmers who are struggling to do their work with this closure, whether it be just regular folks who are trying to travel around the community, and because of the significance that it has to people in our community.”

MLA Megan Mitton in her Sackville constituency office.

… Continue

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