Category: Community News

There will be big changes in central Sackville this summer as Mount Allison’s Lansdowne Field is converted to a parking lot, while the university starts construction of a new building to house an interim library and future multipurpose athletic centre on Lansdowne Street.

The school’s VP of Finance and Administration Robert Inglis shared the news with Tantramar council on Tuesday afternoon in a special meeting.

The $85 million project includes a major renovation of the Ralph Pickard Bell Library, but first the university must construct a building to house library services while that renovation takes place. The plan is to start construction on that building this summer, which means closing the existing Lansdowne parking lot next door. And that will mean one additional component to the project, Inglis told councillors on Tuesday.

“We are planning on improving our parking facilities by using Lansdowne Field,” said Inglis. The school’s communications department confirmed that the new parking lot is “intended as a permanent solution to address the growing need for parking on campus.” The new parking lot will be built starting this summer and is expected to open in the fall.

The Lansdowne Field is more than twice the size of the current parking lot on Lansdowne. CHMA has asked the university for details on the size of the proposed new lot, but have yet to hear back.… Continue

The village of Memramcook is making moves to protect the French language within its boundaries.

At their meeting Tuesday night, the village council passed a new policy declaring French as the official language of the village. Mayor Maxime Bourgeois says the policy confirms French as the working language for staff, council and committees, and also requires an effort be made to have contracted services delivered in French.

At the same meeting, the village council also passed first reading of a new commercial signage by-law which will require the presence of French on new commercial signs in the village.

Bourgeois says the by-law could bring about changes to the linguistic landscape of the community, which will help people “recognize the Francophone and Acadian characteristics of our community.”

Right now, says Bourgeois, “most of the signs are unfortunately in English only, even though all the business owners are Francophone.”

The by-law will take some time to have an effect, as it will apply only to new signs, and signs being replaced for other reasons. But the village will also offer a temporary financial incentive to encourage existing businesses to add French to their signs sooner rather than later.

Bourgeois says the demographics of the town have been shifting slowly to include more Anglophones, with the 2021 census counting 23% of residents identifying English as their first language.… Continue

Mount Allison University was host to some of the best basketball teams in the country, as well as some sold out crowds at the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) Men’s Basketball Championships last week. Eight teams competed for the title at the newly refurbished McCormack Gymnasium.

Although the Mounties weren’t able to bring home gold, they won their first game against the Vanier Cheetahs by 20 points to a massive crowd of hundreds. Their next game was sold out, with all of the allowed 950 seats spoken for.

Ultimately, the Keyano Huskies from Fort McMurray beat out Toronto’s George Brown Huskies during Saturday’s Championship Game.

Kids from the local schools were invited to attend games during the day. Norval McConnell, chairperson of the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association, National Men’s Basketball Championship 2024, says it was payback to local kids for their part in supporting the university’s sports teams last year.

“Mount A was without a gym for part of the year and we were able to run our programs at some of the local schools outside of school time,” said McConnell. “It’s…our way of saying thank you for saving us last year when we didn’t have a gym.”

The McCormack Gymnasium received a $5 million upgrade, and McConnell says it was in large part because of the 2018 CCAA Women’s Championship being held in Sackville.… Continue

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.… Continue

If you had a feeling of deja vu when you heard the news last week that Mount Allison’s dining services staff had received termination notices, there’s a good reason. The situation is nearly identical to one that took place about a year ago at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton.

In both cases, the universities issued Requests for Proposals (RFPs) to companies interested in competing for the dining services contract at the schools, and in both cases, the unionized workers under existing collective agreements were not guaranteed successor rights in those RFPs. That means the winning bidders had no obligation to take over those collective agreements.

At both Mount Allison and UNB, it meant a slew of termination notices to workers, after the companies with union agreements did not win renewed contracts. .

Adrienne Paradis is a national servicing representative for CUPE. She says the change of dining contractors in Fredericton was disruptive and painful for workers in her union, but it wasn’t always that way. The union doesn’t have copies of the RFPs issued by UNB over the years (“I’m not going to lie,” says Paradis, “they’re very hard to get ahold of.”) But Paradis is convinced that 2023 marked a change in how union contracts were treated in UNB’s RFP process.

“In talking with the members that have been there for 40-plus years, and speaking with previous representatives… There was never termination letters given.… Continue

A Mount Allison student is finalizing plans to open a queer friendly nightclub in Moncton, after getting bitten by the entrepreneurship bug during her time at Mount A.

Arianna Roach is a student in Commerce and Women and Gender Studies, attending part time this year, so that she can make time to work on her new business, ARIS Nightclub, which she plans to have open in time for Pride Month in June.

Roach says that after seeing promotions for The Pitch, a Dragon’s Den style competition put on by Venture Space Mt A, she enquired about the school’s entrepreneurship programs, and was told her first step was to come up with an idea. So she asked herself what was missing in her world.

“I had just turned 19, and I was looking for bars to go to for myself,” she recalls. Since the closure of Pink Flamingos in Moncton in 2021, the city had been without a gay bar. “I took that idea and rolled with that,” says Roach.

Non-queer folks often don’t realize the importance of a safe and welcoming LGBTQ+ social space, says Roach, but after a year and a half working on pitching ARIS Nightclub, she’s getting pretty good at explaining it.

“It’s almost like when guys get together for a football game, or girls get together for a wine night or whatever,” explains Roach. “You like to be with your community, people who are like you, share the same ideas, experiences, opinions.”… Continue

A new Sunday afternoon event called the Connections Lab, is giving people a space to work on creative projects in a warm, welcoming place.

About 20 people showed up to the first edition, including a table full of children. Participants brought knitting, made water colour paintings, and drawings. 

“These are grey days,” said organizer Alana Morouney. 

“We wanted to have a space where people can feel creative and feel like they can do things that has few barriers.” 

“So when you come in today you don’t have to pay for anything, you don’t have to buy a cup of coffee on your way in. It’s free.” 

Connection Lab will take place at the Sackville Commons, every Sunday during the month of March from 2:00 pm until 4:00 pm. … Continue

Despite some misuse in recent months, both the Sackville Community Sharing Cupboard and its counterpart the Station 8 Community Fridge in Dorchester continue to supply area residents with much needed groceries on flexible schedules.

The new style of food distribution has become a fixture of life in Tantramar. The operations work like self-serve food banks, with food stored and available on site, and people able to come pick up what they need at any time. The lack of tracking and monitoring makes it easy and convenient for people in need, but the model is also prone to occasional abuse. Recently Station 8 (also known as the Dorchester Moving Forward Cooperative) made some changes to its community fridge program, closing it overnight and better defining the region it’s meant to serve.

Station 8 first started their Community Fridge back in July 2022 with a goal to help supply fresh produce, dairy and proteins. An anonymous corporate donor gives two truckloads of food every week, and staff and volunteers working out of the Station 8 headquarters stock the fridges daily.

Volunteer Wendy Keats says the program generally works as intended, and gets lots of use, with supplies dwindling by the end of each week. But there have also been incidents of misuse.

Because the community fridges are located beside the Station 8 office, staff and volunteers have a sense of who and how many people come and go.… Continue