Hear this story as reported on Tantramar Report:
A Strait Shores councillor says he has been unfairly treated after being banned from the Strait Shores municipal building, being told not to communicate with any other staff or councillors, and being locked out of his municipal email account. Councillor Andy MacGregor says he has also been told he cannot discuss the sanctions against him, even though they were in a motion passed by Strait Shores council during an open session.
MacGregor was elected in a by-election on December 9, 2024, and sworn in on January 13, 2025. At his second meeting with the five-person Strait Shores council, the rookie councillor introduced a series of 12 motions, including several asking that Strait Shores and also former Village of Port Elgin financial statements and budgets be posted on the municipality’s website. At the end of that meeting, MacGregor also made a statement asserting that the power and authority of the municipal government rested with council, and not with “the unelected”, referring to municipal staff.
The meeting was occasionally tense, but most of MacGregor’s motions passed with friendly amendments, though some were left without a seconder. The only nay vote of the night came at the very end of the meeting, from Councillor Tanya Haynes, voicing her opposition to MacGregor’s statement.
But although the February 10 meeting appeared relatively calm to onlookers, it seems to have unleashed a storm for the government of Strait Shores.
Three days after the meeting Strait Shores mayor Jason Stokes resigned. Then one week after that resignation, council met to pass severe sanctions against Councillor Andy MacGregor, citing complaints about his behaviour at the February 10 meeting. A few days after that, two councillors resigned, also citing issues with MacGregor. Both rescinded their resignation letters the next day.
This past Friday, council met for a special meeting, but although Councillors Stacy Jones and Tanya Haynes voted to accept Stokes’ resignation, Haynes declined to second a motion to declare a vacancy on council, thereby missing the Elections NB deadline for April by-elections. The Strait Shores mayoralty will now sit vacant for the next 15 months, until province-wide municipal elections happen in May 2026.
And then this Monday, Councillor Andy MacGregor delivered his formal complaint about the process leading to his indefinite suspension from municipal business to the Local Governance Commission based in Fredericton.
MacGregor spoke to CHMA about the substance of the complaint, as well as his reaction to Mayor Jason Stokes resignation letter, on Friday, February 28. Click below to hear the full version of that interview.
“My complaint is that I’m being unfairly treated,” says MacGregor. “They’re misinterpreting persistence for bullying.”
“Because I come in here and say, Oh, we should maybe, you know, put this information up there for people to see, I’m attacked and pushed out,” says MacGregor.
Accusations of bullying leveled at MacGregor came out in Mayor Jason Stokes resignation letter, which was read by Deptuy Mayor Annamarie Boyd at the February 28 special council meeting.
In the letter, Stokes writes that MacGregor became known to himself and staff as the “town bully”, and also that staff were “shell shocked” by interactions with MacGregor.
“It’s just not true,” says MacGregor, in response to Stokes’ accusations. “I’ve been persistent. I haven’t given up,” says MacGregor. “I ran on a platform of accountability and transparency, and that’s what I’m pursuing.”
The Stokes letter describes McGregor as having an “intense hatred” for municipal staff that led him to run for council. That’s not the case, says MacGregor. “I haven’t said a mean word. I haven’t disrespected anybody. I dare anybody to show me anything that would resemble bullying… a nasty email, mean words, anything, one sentence, and I’ll take my punishment as dished out,” says MacGregor.
Stokes’ letter also accuses MacGregor of “repeatedly” accusing the staff and council of defrauding the municipality. But MacGregor says his only accusation was concerning a conflict of interest, and he submitted that as a formal complaint in the summer of 2024, well before he was elected.
“It was never brought up or dealt with. It was just swept under the carpet, so to speak,” says MacGregor. “If launching an official complaint is deemed to be accusing people of defrauding the government, and I don’t know, maybe I’m guilty of that.”
Ultimately, MacGregor says his quest for more transparency is supported by the community. “I got 62% of the vote in a three-horse race,” says MacGregor, referring to his December 9 by-election win. The councillor says he got “tons of messages. People talked to me. They were extremely supportive and delighted that I was taking that approach… I think that my quest, and my pursuit of transparency and accountability in the municipality of Strait Shores is extremely well supported in the community.”
MacGregor is adamant that he hasn’t broken the Strait Shores code of conduct, and also that the process by which he’s been sanctioned by council is outside of the rules. It was days after the February 20 meeting before MacGregor received an actual copy of the motion outlining the sanctions, and when it arrived, it was marked confidential, he says.
‘This cannot be shared with anyone’
“I got a registered letter in the mail with the title ‘Resolution regarding Code of Conduct violation”, says MacGregor. “It’s all typed out, and it’s signed by the mayor and the clerk. And then at the top of it in pen, somebody’s written, ‘personal and confidential’. And then at the bottom in pen, somebody has written, ‘this cannot be shared with anyone.’”
That’s something MacGregor doesn’t agree with, because the motion for the resolution was made in an open session of council. He also takes issue with what’s in the resolution.
The Strait Shores code of conduct bylaw includes a list of sanctions that can be used against a councillor should they be found to violate the code. But in MacGregor’s case, the resolution approved by council applies sanctions that are not listed in the bylaw, and that prevent him from working as a councillor indefinitely, until a third party investigation is concluded.
MacGregor says that when he spoke with the director of the Local Governance Commission Mary Oley about the sanctions, Oley told him that suspension of a councillor is allowed under new regulations brought in by the province, but only up to 90 days. Currently in Tantramar, council is considering amendments to its code of conduct bylaw that would include the option for council to impose a 90-day suspension on one of its own. But that, says MacGregor, is not yet part of the Strait Shores bylaw.
“If they wanted to impose a maximum 90-day sanction,” says MacGregor, “they’d have to change the by law.”
“I don’t think they can just make rules up as they go along,” says MacGregor, “but it certainly seems like they’re doing that.”
While the Local Governance Commission considers MacGregor’s complaint, the councillor says he will abide by the sanctions laid against him.
“I’m trying to be sensitive to everything,” says MacGregor. The complaint with the Local Governance Commission is “about the only course of action I think I can take at the moment,” says MacGregor.
The councillor says he encourages residents to weigh in and communicate with their councillors about what’s happening.
“The worst thing you can do is sit idly and say nothing, right?” says MacGregor. “So I encourage people to speak up, say what’s on your mind. If you feel strongly about it, stand up and speak to it.”
CHMA has reached out by email to other members of Strait Shores council and former mayor Jason Stokes on social media. None have responded to requests for comment on the code of conduct sanctions against Andy MacGregor.
