Interview Archives » Page 2 of 8 » CHMA, Voice of the Marshes

Corner Drug starts administering another 620 doses of COVID-19 vaccines in Sackville

Sackville resident Shelley Beaver gets a shot of the AstraZeneca vaccine on Thursday, April 8, at the Corner Drug Store.

Sackvillians are getting access to three of Canada’s federally-approved vaccines.

Last week, Corner Drug administered 278 doses of the Moderna vaccine to area residents. (Staff managed to squeeze out more than the expected 270 doses “by wasting not a drop” says pharmacist-owner Charles Beaver.)

You can listen to the full interview with Charles Beaver here:

This week, the pharmacy received 120 doses of Pfizer and is, “well underway administering all of those.” Today, they will receive 500 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

On Wednesday, the province announced a new age group — anyone 70 or older — is eligible to register for vaccinations with either a pharmacy or a health authority clinic. But a wider age group is eligible to receive the AstraZeneca vaccine at select clinics and pharmacies throughout the province. (Scroll to the bottom of this story for eligibility details, links, and contact numbers.)

In Sackville, anyone 55 or over is eligible to register for a vaccine through the Corner Drug Store. Beaver says he’s asking people to register for a vaccination on the pharmacy’s website, and then they will be sent a link to book their appointment. Anyone without an email address will receive a call.

“It’s very helpful for us, for folks to use the website, because there was an overwhelming volume of telephone calls in the last few weeks,” says Beaver.… Continue

A portion of a book cover. There is a photo of cotton with the words "Homing Instinct, Shoshanna Wingate."

Trauma, connection, and care: Shoshanna Wingate on the power of poetry

Hear this story as reported on Tantramar Report:

To kick off poetry month, CHMA called Sackville poet laureate Shoshanna Wingate.

She has two published works of poetry, Homing Instinct and Radio Weather, and is working on a memoir.

Wingate has a long history with poetry, starting back in her childhood in the United States.

“We had to do a public speaking presentation in my grade five English class,” Wingate remembers. “I just fell in love with the power of the words and the power of the recitation and how it made me feel like I was wielding something so much bigger than myself.”

“In reciting [the] poem… the repetition, and the beauty of the language, sort of transported me. It just really changed me… I fell pretty hard and wrote poems obsessively in middle and high school. In university, I began taking poetry courses, and eventually went on to graduate school to earn a Masters of Fine Arts in poetry.”

Wingate says that writing poetry has been an important step in accepting herself and her complicated childhood.

“When I was first starting out as a poet, I tried really hard to stay away from writing about my life. I had a very unusual life, and I had a very challenging life in a lot of ways,” explains Wingate. “I didn’t want to be known for what I perceived as the things that happened to me.… Continue

“It can happen to you”: One woman’s COVID-19 story

Heather Leblanc, in a live video from January 6, 2021, telling the story of her experience with COVID-19.

A Dieppe woman who attended a family gathering in Sackville over Christmas, and was later diagnosed with COVID-19, is speaking out about her experience.

Heather Leblanc is from the Sackville area, and currently lives in Dieppe where she is director of the Canadian Physique Alliance.

Leblanc attended one gathering in Sackville on Christmas day with 18 people.

Leblanc says that all of the people she had contact with in Sackville at Christmas have been contacted and tested, and none have contracted the disease since the gathering on the 25th.

Erica Butler spoke with Leblanc to find out more about her experience.

Leblanc says that in addition to Public Health contact tracers, her mother personally contacted all attendees at the Sackville gathering to inform them of her diagnosis.

This led to rumours circulating, in person and online, including one recently that the six cases announced on January 3rd included Sackville-based COVID-19 cases.

CHMA can’t verify the locations of any cases announced by the province, as Public Health does not disclose the locations of cases within health zones. But Leblanc is confident that no one she had contact with in Sackville ended up contracting COVID-19.

At the time of the Christmas gatherings, Leblanc was asymptomatic, though she says she did have mild cold symptoms about a week prior.

At first her husband, former Canadian bodybuilding champion Jean Leblanc, started feeling unwell, with “a bit of cough and a fever,” said Leblanc.… Continue

A person holds a protest sign that reads "not your body, not your choice, #StopTheBans."

New Brunswick provincial government sued over abortion regulation

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association held a teleconference today to address New Brunswick’s Regulation 84-20.

As the conference was in progress, the CCLA filed its formal lawsuit against the province by dropbox yesterday, citing violations of the Canadian Health Act.

In their press release, the CCLA pointed our that New Brunswick’s Regulation 84-20 only permits three hospitals, in two cities, to carry out abortion services.

This leaves 90% of New Brunswickers without adequate abortion services.

CHMA contacted Tasia Alexopoulos, representative of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, who attended the teleconference call.

Their conversation is available here:

According to Alexopoulos, the current Conservative majority government is growing more solid in its stance against repealing Regulation 84-20 the longer time goes on.

Health Minister Sheppard was asked about the lawsuit during the COVID-19 press conference yesterday, and she was unable to comment.

CCLA filed the lawsuit after multiple attempts to come to an agreement with the provincial government, to no avail.

RELATED:

Clinic 554 leading class-action lawsuit against provincial government

Reproductive Justice NB weighs in on the possible closure of Clinic 554

… Continue

Glenn Barrington and Anne Herteis make drinks behind a bar, side by side.

Thunder and Lightning travelling cocktail bar returns

A beloved and missed Bridge Street fixture is carting their skills to your backyard in 2021.

Glenn Barrington and Anne Herteis of Thunder and Lightning announced that their travelling cocktail bar will be up and running this spring and summer, for those who miss their signature drinks and chat.

On May 14th, the couple announced the closure of the T&L pub on social media, one post gathering almost 500 likes and 90 comments of support.

The pub’s location on 23 Bridge Street has since been cleared of its signature couches and taxidermy wildlife, and replaced with a vaporizer store named “The Vapour Trail.”

While Thunder and Lightning no longer has a physical presence in the community, Barrington says the spirit of the bar will be kept alive in the coming year.

Glenn Barrington and Anne Herteis made the difficult decision to close the doors of Thunder and Lightning Pub shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic shut down Canada in spring of last year.

Now, with vaccines on the horizon and more knowledge of how COVID-19 spreads, the pair are tentatively accepting bookings for events in the spring and summer.

Barrington and Herteis had a soft launch for T&L’s travelling cocktail bar on March 9th last year, just days before COVID-19 lockdown.

The cocktail bar is meant to be mobile in order to travel to and from events, such as weddings or private parties, and provide drinks and banter on the go. … Continue

A year in review with MLA Megan Mitton

Megan Mitton, MLA for the Memramcook-Tantramar riding, was re-elected in September with 41.6% of the votes.

Mitton has been MLA through 2020, the year of the COVID-19 pandemic, a snap election, and the near closure of overnight services at the Sackville Memorial Hospital.

CHMA news called Mitton to review the ups and downs of this year.

Listen to the full interview here:

Meg Cunningham: Back to the beginning of the year, which feels like forever ago, [was] the threat of closure of the Sackville Memorial Hospital. I was curious to know where we are at with that, or where the government is at with that in terms of the security of the Sackville Memorial Hospital.

Megan Mitton: Yeah, it is hard to remember. Everything pre-pandemic does feel very long ago. But that is one of the major things that happened in our riding, and then in several areas in the province earlier this year. We were successful in getting the government to at least promise that they weren’t going to be shutting down our ERs [emergency rooms] overnight… we asked them to say that in the house. They have maintained that, that is true. However, we still don’t have a very clear picture of what’s going to happen. So bringing us up to right now, I know that the Minister of Health has requested visions, the vision for health care, from some different groups.… Continue

A person standing in a garden holding gardening tools.

A year in review with Laura Reinsborough, director of Food For All NB

Food For All NB is a non-profit organization that aims to educate New Brunswickers about food security.

As director, Reinsborough has had a busy year since COVID-19 complicated access to food security programs across the province.

She and her team were quick to respond by publishing grant opportunities, food maps, and community resources on Food For All NB’s website.

Reinsborough provides a detailed recap of what Food For All NB accomplished in 2020, and suggests some long-term solutions to food insecurity in New Brunswick.

The full interview is available here:

RELATED:

Food For All NB director says New Brunswick is capable of improving food security

Green MP Kevin Arseneau says NB needs to focus on food sovereignty

… Continue

Debby Warren stands next to an interactive dispensing service machine.

Ensemble to install harm reduction “vending machine” in Sackville

Sackville will host a “vending machine,” or an interactive dispensing service, containing harm reduction supplies.

Executive Director of Ensemble Moncton, Debby Warren, says she was amazed by the machines at a national conference in Ottawa in 2019.

Now, almost exactly a year later, Ensemble is the proud owner of two interactive dispensing service machines.

The first is installed in Moncton, with the second one to arrive in Sackville, New Brunswick.

Meg Cunningham: I’m talking to you today about the harm reduction vending machines that you got recently because of a $45,000 grant, the COVID-19 relief grant for nonprofits. Before we get to that, I’m wondering if you can tell me a little bit about Ensemble, for those who might not have heard of you.

Debby Warren: Okay, so some may have heard of us under the name of AIDS Moncton. We have been serving Westmorland-Albert county since 1989. So we’re not new, even though our name appears to be new. In the past, we did a lot of work around HIV prevention, and support for those who are living with HIV and AIDS. We’re still about HIV, hepatitis C, sexually transmitted and blood borne infections. That is the premise behind the work that we do. There are populations that are at greater risk for that. Our priority populations now are people who use substances, [they] certainly fall in that category.… Continue

A white food truck is parked beside a brick building and is decorated by lights.

Deus Ex Macina shares their love of coffee Saturday mornings

Alice Cotton and Pete Stephenson are serving up a well-loved treat every Saturday at the Sackville Farmers’ Market, coffee!

Cotton and Stephenson are partners in life as well as business, and started brewing professionally just a few months ago.

Their repurposed Belliveau Orchard truck, named “Beatrice,” can be found next to Pi By Crow on Main Street.

Nearly everything in the truck is upcycled, thrifted, and repaired with love.

They are proud to share their love of espresso under the name “Deus Ex Macina.”

The full conversation with Cotton and Stephenson is available here:

MC: I just figured that I should check in with you both about your new business. Which is, I’m hoping, pronounced Deus Ex Macina [ma-KEE-nah]? Or is it? Do you actually say macina [ma-SHE-nah]? How do you say it?

AC: I will tell you the pronunciation since I came up with the name. It’s Deus Ex Macina [ma-CHEE-na]. So the “CI” is pronounced like a “CH.” It’s a play on words. The theatrical expression is “deus ex macina” [ma-KEY-nah], and the words [ma-KEY-nah] and [ma-CHEE-nah] are from the same Greek roots, which kind of means machine, and “macina” means grinding stone. It’s one of the oldest machines around. So it was a funny play on words. It’s God is coming out of our grinder to save the day, instead of that of some machine from the sky as it would have been in a Greek play.… Continue

Joanna Perkin is smiling with a body of water in the background,

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

Category: Interview