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Tantramar residents asked to weigh in for $68K brand development initiative

*A detail from an Elections NB interactive map showing the five wards in the new town of Tantramar in light brown, with the old town of Sackville and village of Dorchester shaded in orange stripes.*

The new municipality of Tantramar is in the midst of a roughly $68,000 brand development initiative.

To develop the brand identity for the newly formed town, the town hired the Details Design + Branding, which is working with the public relations firm Porter O’Brien.

They’re seeking input from local residents through a survey that can be found online at TakePartTantramar.ca. The survey closes on June 30th.

Public engagement will also be taking place in-person at several locations around Tantramar beginning this weekend.

Tanya Duffy, who runs the Fredericton-based design firm, said the process will involve more than just the creation of a logo.

“A brand is more than an image, it’s a sense of identity,” Duffy said.

Listen to the interview with CHMA

The municipality, which brings together Sackville, Dorchester and neighbouring areas, came into existence on New Year’s Day, following the Higgs government’s controversial process of local governance reform.

In May 2022, a committee of local officials announced that it would be called Tantramar. Until then, it was known by the placeholder name Entity 40.

Throughout this process, there’s been a lot of talk about what the changes would mean for the identities of formerly separate communities.

Tom Bateman, a senior consultant with Porter O’Brien, noted that the goal isn’t to stop residents from calling their home community by established names such as Sackville. … Continue

‘A good living if somebody wants to do it’: Sackville Cab up for sale

Image from an online ad listing Sackville Cab for sale. Image from RoyalLepage.ca

Sackville Cab is up for sale.

Owner Larry Parsons says he put the business up for sale a few weeks ago because he’s hoping to retire this summer, but he says its been a good business for the last 25 years. “I don’t want to sell,” says Parsons. “I’m 65 and I’m tired…. Your body can only handle so much.”

The business is listed online for $140,000, and Parsons says he is represented by Sackville realtor Grace Nelson.

Right now the business employs five drivers and Parsons says if he can’t find a buyer he will be scaling back to about 40% of his current workload. The business includes four to five cars, radios, the Sackville cab phone number, and a number of regular contracts that provide a steady income for the business.

The contracts include school runs to Cap Pelé and Rockport, a daily work commuter, and transportation for Mount Allison, the hospital, and Ambulance NB. “We have four cars going most the time,” says Parsons. “I just don’t know what everybody’s gonna do.”

Many of Parsons’s customers don’t drive or have access to a vehicle. One customer jokingly told him she hopes she’s passed on before he manages to sell.

Costs have gone up over the years, says Parsons, but the business is still viable. “In the last five years, everything’s doubled,” he says. “It’s still a living, and still good living if somebody wants to do it.”… Continue

Policy 713: rally in Sackville, rebellion in legislature, and debate coming to town council

In the legislature on Thursday, six PC MLAs voted in favour of an opposition motion calling for a review of changes to the education department’s Policy 713. The PC votes meant the Liberal motion passed, 26 to 20 in favour of the policy review, to be performed by child and youth advocate, Kelly Lamrock. Though the motion is not binding on the government, Lamrock has said it is binding on him, and he will follow through.

Hogan’s Policy 713 changes have been stirring up action in Tantramar this week as well. On Tuesday evening, Councillor Michael Tower gave notice of a motion he intends to make at the next regular meeting, to write a letter on behalf of council supporting the original policy 713, which among other things, requires teachers to address students of all ages by their preferred names and pronouns.

CHMA caught up with Tower after Tuesday’s meeting:

Tower says he has a personal connection to the policy discussion, because he has a non-binary grandchild. “I personally feel that the premier and [education minister Bill] Hogan both don’t have a great understanding of what it is and how it’s affecting the youth,” said Tower on Tuesday evening.

A rally in Sackville on Wednesday called for repealing recent changes to New Brunswick’s Policy 713. Photo: Erica Butler

On Wednesday, a group of about 18 Sackville residents gathered to voice their support for a repeal of the changes. The rally was originally planned to piggyback on the town’s Pride Picnic, which was postponed due to weather.… Continue

Four-day Shiretown Fest begins today in Dorchester

*The Shiretown Festival is taking place from Thursday, June 15 until Sunday, June 18, 2023. Photo: Bill Steele/Facebook*

Dorchester’s Shiretown Festival begins today at 6 p.m. with opening ceremonies at the Village Square Gazebo.

The main organizer of the festival is Debbie Shea, owner of the Village Square Take-Out restaurant in Dorchester.

In an interview with CHMA, she said the community event will have a strong emphasis on activities for kids.

Some of the activities include a watermelon-eating contest, a kid’s dance at the gazebo, a baseball game, a book sale at the library, a community yard sale, a cake auction, a car show, and more.

“We just do it for the community and for the enjoyment,” Shea said.

Listen to the interview with CHMA:

A schedule of events can be found on the restaurant’s Facebook page.

Visitors to Dorchester may want to confirm details of events with organizers or by asking local residents around the village.

A movie night scheduled in the brochure for Thursday at the Moving Forward Co-op is, in fact, happening outside Dorchester Consolidated School on Friday evening.

The movie is Toy Story and it will be screened after the baseball game on Friday evening at 9 p.m., according to the Co-op.

Shea advised people to check out the Moving Forward Co-op’s Facebook page for details about events hosted by that group. … Continue

Council sends back climate change advisory appointments as Estabrooks calls committee rules into question

Tantramar council has delayed a series of appointments to the town’s Climate Change Advisory Committee (CCAC) after one councillor pointed out discrepancies between the length of the appointments and the committee’s terms of reference.

Councillor Matt Estabrooks asked to send back a motion to appoint Sabine Dietz, Dan Matthews, and Mikko McGregor-Corson. Though councillor Josh Goguen, who sits on the CCAC, and councillor Mike Tower voted against, the rest of council agreed with Estabrooks and so the appointments were sent back to staff for corrections.

Dietz is head of CLIMAtlantic, and a former Sackville councillor. She also ran against Estabrooks for his Ward 4 seat on Tantramar council last year. Matthews is a retired meteorologist and head of Dorchester’s Emergency Measures Organization. McGregor-Corson is an Environmental Studies student and organizer with Divest MTA. The three would have been appointed to serve on the advisory committee for 1.5 and 2.5 year terms, until December 2024 and December 2025. But Estabrooks pointed out that according to the CCAC’s terms of reference, at least two of those appointments should have been made shorter, to coincide with the terms of the people they are replacing.

Sackville councillors and Ward 4 candidates Sabine Dietz and Matt Estabrooks. Photo: Peter Stephenson

The CCAC will now be asked to recommend two people—one student and one community member—to serve on the committee for just six months, and then deal with vacancies again at the end of this year.… Continue

Performers’ is back with quirky and fun Stanton’s Garage

Actors Ben Hébert and Faith Higgins play in Stanton’s Garage, which opens this Friday at Performers’ Theatre Studio on Fairfield Road. Photo: Erica Butler

Sackville’s community theatre company is at it again. The Performers’ Theatre Company is just about ready to open its latest production, Stanton’s Garage, this Friday evening at the Performers’ Space on Fairfield Road in Sackville. Written by Joan Ackerman and directed by Sackville’s Chris Farella, Stanton’s Garage is part reflection on life, and part comedy of errors.

“It has this sort of personal, introspective, reflective side to it,” says actor Ben Hébert, “and then it has this more sort of goofy, silly side, which Performers’ [Theatre Company] is really known for.”

The play is set in the quintessential rural garage, says Hébert, complete with a quirky cast of characters. “When people see this garage, we want them to be like, ‘Oh, I’ve been in this garage. I’ve talked to these people before.’”

Actor Faith Higgins says the set design has recreated the atmosphere of a small town garage, made easier with the cooperation and generosity of a local garage owner. “We were able to pull a bunch of junk that he just had lying around for like 10, 20 years in order to make our set look just identical to his,” says Higgins, complete with decades of grease and oil residue.

This is Higgins second production with Performers’, having served as assistant stage manager for Hound of the Baskervilles.… Continue

Sackville parent hits the capital to talk importance of calling kids by the names they call themselves

Memramcook-Tantramar MLA Megan Mitton visited Sackville parent Patricia Kelly Spurles outside the New Brunswick legislature on Friday. Photo: contributed

Sackville parent Patricia Kelly Spurles is spending Friday on the front lawn of the New Brunswick legislature, waiting for her chance to meet and talk with Education minister Bill Hogan about his recently announced changes to New Brunswick’s Policy 713. Kelly Spurles says she’ll continue to show up while the legislature is in session, in hopes of being able to share her concerns about what Hogan’s policy changes could mean from trans kids and their families.

After releasing his changes in a news conference Thursday morning, Hogan immediately took criticism in the legislature, most notably from Liberal leader Susan Holt, Memramcook-Tantramar MLA Megan Mitton, and eight members of his own party, who sat out of the legislature, citing concerns over the process of revising Policy 713.

Hogan outlined three areas of change, with the most significant being in the requirements around addressing students. The original policy 713 required that school staff use a student’s preferred first name and pronouns “consistently in ways that the student has requested.” But Hogan’s revision limits this requirement to only students 16 and over.

Hogan told reporters that he felt the original policy was “fundamentally wrong” because it did not require parents to be notified of preferred name changes in kids under 16. Under the current policy, changes to how a child is addressed at school could be, “in essence hidden from parents unless the child gives permission to share that with them.… Continue

Horizon working on temporary primary care clinic in Sackville

Update Monday, June 12, 2023:

The interim primary care clinic being planned by Horizon Health Network will likely be located in the office of Dr. Catherine Johnston, in the Tantramar Health Centre on Main Street, right across from the Sackville Memorial Hospital. Johnston’s practice is closing at the end of June. Horizon spokesperson Kris McDavid says the health authority is targeting a September start date for the clinic.

Horizon Health Network is working on setting up a temporary primary care clinic in Sackville. The move comes in reaction to the imminent loss of two family doctors who are closing their practices this summer.

Dr. Jody Enright, Medical Director for the Moncton region for Horizon Health Network

Horizon’s regional medical director Dr. Jody Enright was not available for an interview, but sent a statement to CHMA saying that, “as an interim measure, we are securing resources to set up a primary care clinic to provide short-term primary medical care for affected patients.”

A spokesperson for Horizon says the clinic would work in a similar way to the NB Health Link clinics in Moncton and Dieppe that are being operated by Medavie. In those clinics, patients can request online or in-person appointments with a doctor or nurse practitioner, but are not assigned to a dedicated primary care provider.… Continue

A single syringe against a pink background.

New Brunswick poised to join class-action lawsuit against opioid industry for health damages

A proposed law would allow New Brunswick to join a multimillion dollar class-action lawsuit against more than 40 pharmaceutical players involved in the opioid industry.

Bill 58, the Opioid Damages and Health Care Costs Recovery Act, is meant to help recoup funds which the health-care system has lost because of the opioid epidemic.

The government bill went through second reading in the legislature on Tuesday, and so far appears to have the support of all parties.

Listen to the report from CHMA:

Local MLA and Green Party health critic Megan Mitton (Memramcook-Tantramar) told the Legislative Assembly that any funds won through legal action should be used to deal with addiction-related issues.

For example, she called for more safe consumption sites, facilities where people can use substances indoors under the supervision of trained staff who can intervene in case of an overdose.

Ensemble Moncton recently opened an overdose prevention site in downtown Moncton, the first of its kind in New Brunswick. The organization also installed a vending machine-style service in Sackville to distribute material such as sterile syringes.

Ashley Legere stands next to an interactive dispensing service machine. — *Ashley Legere poses next to the interactive dispensing service machine on Main Street. Photo by Meg Cunningham.*

A wave of overdoses in Saint John has also led to calls for a safe consumption site in that city.

Among other changes, Mitton called for more widespread availability of Naloxone kits, which can rapidly reverse an overdose.

“We hear from firefighters, we hear from other first responders that they’re administering Naloxone kits regularly,” she said.… Continue

Possible zoning change to increase allowable height on 108+ acres in Sackville

A detail from Sackville’s zoning map, with R3 zones in blue.

Correction: A previous version of this story identified one 3.5 acre property on Charlotte Street as vacant in error. The story and chart have been edited to reflect correct information. June 8, 2023, 8:30am

Two public hearings on proposed zoning changes are slated to happen at the end of this month, during Tantramar council’s June 27 committee of the whole meeting.

Approval of both changes would make way for a plan by developer John Lafford to build a six-storey building in the back half of the property at 131 Main Street, current home to the historic Joseph F Allison house, built in about 1841.

In order to make his plan work, Lafford is asking council to rezone the back half of the property to R3, the zone for high density residential development in Sackville’s by-law. At the same time, he’s asking council to change the definition of the R3 zone, to increase the height limit for buildings there from 50 feet to 65 feet. Lafford says he needs the extra height to make the proposed concrete building feasible. “You need scale in order to do what we’re going to do there,” he told CHMA.

But the change that Lafford is requesting won’t just affect the height allowance on his property at 131 Main Street. It will also change the rules for all properties throughout the former town of Sackville which fall under the R3 zone.… Continue

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