Category: Community News

Memramcook-Tantramar MLA Megan Mitton is hosting another public health care meeting, this time in the municipality of Strait Shores at the Port Elgin Regional School on July 10.

CHMA stopped by Mitton’s Sackville constituency office this week to find out more.

“We’ve focused a lot on the Sackville Memorial Hospital in these meetings, and access to care in Tantramar. But there are also issues in Strait Shores, and especially with the the changes in staffing at the Port Elgin and Region Health Center,” says Mitton. “The community felt that it was important to have a meeting there, and I completely agree.”

Officials from Horizon Health Network and Medavie Health Services (who run NB Health Link, the Extramural Program, and Ambulance NB) will be at the meeting to make presentations and answer questions from the public.

The recent staffing changes at the Port Elgin clinic are part of the reason for the meeting, but Mitton is also hoping to address community concerns about response times for ambulances.

“Port Elgin actually was recognized in an auditor general report, just a handful of years ago, as one of the places in New Brunswick with the worst response times for ambulances,” says Mitton. “And so I want to have that conversation as well. This is a problem across the province, but especially in rural areas, and especially in Strait Shores.”

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The boil water advisory for parts of Sackville has been lifted.  

The municipality posted the news to its website and social media channels just before 3pm on Thursday. 

The message advises that people affected by the boil water order run their cold water for 15 minutes to flush out their plumbing. It also advises that water dispensers and ice makers be cleaned out to ensure any possibility contaminated water is removed.

New Brunswick Public Health requires two consecutive sets of water samples to test clear of E. coli and total coliforms before lifting a boil water advisory.  Tantramar Public Works sent in a second set of samples Wednesday afternoon, and published the lifted boil water advisory about 24 hours later. … Continue

A boil water advisory is still in effect for a large number of households and businesses on and off Main Street in Sackville, between Mackol Avenue and St Paul’s Anglican Church.

Some water customers in the area are being asked to keep water at a rolling boil for one minute before using it for cooking, drinking, or brushing teeth. Tantramar staff delivered notices to each residence and business affected by the advisory on Tuesday.

The municipality updated the list of areas under the advisory on Wednesday morning to include 15 York Street.

• Burman Street
• Fawcett Lane
• King Street (Main Street – Balser Place)
• Main Street (Mackol Avenue – 123 Main Street)
• Mallard Drive
• Meadow Lane
• Milton Lane
• Moffatt Lane
• Parkview Drive
• Pringle Street
• Samantha Court
• Suncrest Drive
• Waterfowl Lane
• Wry Lane
• 15 York Street

The boil water advisory will remain in effect until two consecutive sets of clear water test results are returned and New Brunswick’s Public Health Office lifts the order.

The advisory is the result of a water main break at 165 Main Street on Tuesday, right in front of the Drew Nursing Home.

By late afternoon Tuesday the underground break was repaired, and crews were working to fill the hole on Main Street, while water utility crews were working on refilling and flushing the lines in the water system.… Continue

In a special meeting Wednesday afternoon Tantramar council approved spending $5200 a year for the next four years on a scholarship aimed at future doctors and nurse practitioners, with the understanding that those who benefit from the scholarship will in turn commit to practicing in Tantramar.

According to Tantramar Community and Corporate Services director Kieran Miller, the scholarship was started by Memramcook-Tantramar MLA Megan Mitton who is contributing $2500 per year.

The scholarship is administered through the New Brunswick Medical Education Foundation, which hosts dozens of similar scholarships, all with “return to service” conditions that require scholarship recipients to practice for a period of time in specific jurisdictions.

Miller told council Wednesday that for every year of scholarship funding students receive, they will be asked to commit to a year of local practice.

She credits Mitton with planting the seed for the project, and creating the scholarship in the first place. She says the Tantramar contribution will grow the scholarship amount, making it more attrative to potential candidates. “Medical school tuition is very expensive,” says Miller, “so if you can offer a higher scholarship, it’s more incentive to apply.”

During Wednesday’s meeting, councillor Allison Butcher called the project “fabulous” and asked how the scholarship would be promoted. Miller said the New Brunswick Medical Education Foundation has a promotion campaign, and the municipality would also share information on its platforms.… Continue

Sackville is seeing a spike in COVID-19, or at least it was on June 11, the most recent date with available data on Canada’s COVID-19 wastewater monitoring dashboard.

Wastewater testing involves taking samples of sewage and testing for viral loads of SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes COVID-19. Sewage surveillance has been used as an early warning system for infection levels, because COVID-19 can be detected in wastewater even before symptoms develop in people.

The municipality started collecting samples in February through an autosampler installed on the Crescent Street lagoon, purchased with funding from New Brunswick Public Health.

Recently, the data from the tests started to show up on the national website, so town engineer Jon Eppell took the opportunity to update council on the project at their meeting on Monday.

“One little pet project we’ve had on the go is the COVID-19 wastewater monitoring dashboard that we spoke to council about last fall,” said Eppell. “It took a while for them to have sufficient data to actually put it on the dashboard. But it is now available… I encourage you to go have a look.”

The data shows a 7-day rolling average of the viral load in the town’s sewage, and does not directly indicate numbers of cases of COVID-19. The Sackville viral load remained well below 50 for February, March and April, but rose sharply by the end of May.… Continue

At their meeting on July 9, Tantramar council will be asked to once again consider a new loitering bylaw for the municipality, but with key changes after a previous version was voted down on June 11.

Town clerk Donna Beal told council changes were made to “ensure they are capturing what the discussion by council indicated that they would like to see in this bylaw.”

This time, the bylaw has been renamed “A By-Law Relating to Loitering and Soliciting in Tantramar,” with the word “begging” replaced by “soliciting.”

And instead of banning soliciting, the new bylaw proposes to ban repeated soliciting after a negative response, and also bans soliciting in a way that might obstruct or impede traffic. Curiously, it also proposes that street musicians be exempt from both those provisions.

The new bylaw, if approved, also includes the repeal of existing Sackville and Dorchester bylaws, one of which is available online, and the other which is inaccessible due to contamination.

The previously rejected bylaw outright banned asking for money in public places, and left in outdated references to door-to-door book sellers.

Back on June 11, Councillor Josh Goguen expressed concerns about both the loitering and begging components of the original bylaw. He told council Monday that he was happy with the changes, and it appeared to him that staff had taken other bylaws like those of Moncton and Amherst into consideration.… Continue

As Tantramar clerk Donna Beal had the chance to explain several times during the municipality’s recent outreach meeting series, the job of town clerk involves being the custodian of all official documents for the municipality. In Tantramar, that job is a little more complicated, because it involves bylaws and policies for three entities: a former town, a former village, and a new municipality. Or at least it does in theory. While the documents for the town of Sackville and municipality of Tantramar are under Beal’s direct care, those of the former village of Dorchester are out of her hands, and have been since shortly after amalgamation in January 2023.

In mid-June, CHMA requested a copy of the Dorchester bylaw “relating to Loitering and Begging”, since it was proposed for repeal and replacement with a new Tantramar-wide bylaw. Two days later, clerk Donna Beal responded via email to say that, “all former Village of Dorchester files are currently in decontamination and staff have no access to these files at this time.”

Tantramar CAO Jennifer Borne later wrote, “the former Dorchester Municipal Office closed on or around January 30, 2023 under workplace health and safety we lost access to everything within the office.”

The ongoing issues put the municipality in contravention of Section 75 of the Local Governance Act, which says that bylaws must be available for public review in the office of the clerk during normal hours.… Continue