Allison Butcher was born and raised in Sackville and lived in Ottawa before returning to her hometown in 1998. She’s the mother of two teenage daughters, and for the past 20 years she has worked as a pre-school teacher. She’s been involved in municipal politics since 2016 and is currently in her second term as councillor.
Listen to CHMA’s Meet The Candidates interview with Allison Butcher, which took place by phone on November 9, 2022.
She is running in Ward 3, where residents will elect four councillors from a pool of nine candidates.
Along with Butcher, those candidates include Michael Tower, Alice Cotton, Josh Goguen, Virgil Hammock, Charles Harvey, Sana Mohamad, Saditya Pendurthi and Bruce Phinney. CHMA has interviewed all of them except for Charles Harvey, who declined an interview request, and Sana Mohamad, as we’re awaiting a response from that candidate.
CHMA is compiling all its election coverage in one place, for your convenience. For more candidate interviews and other local elections coverage, click here.
TRANSCRIPT Allison Butcher, Nov. 9, 2022:
CHMA: Allison Butcher, thanks so much for taking the time to speak with us.
AB: Thank you.
CHMA: So for those who might not already know you, tell us a bit about yourself.
AB: So I’m Allison Butcher, I live in Sackville, and what will be Ward 3. I am a preschool teacher here in town and have been for about 20 years now. I am the parent of two teenage daughters. And I have been involved in municipal politics since 2016.
CHMA: Okay, what factored into your decision to run again, for this new town of Tantramar council.
AB: It was definitely a big decision. One of the advantages or disadvantages of being someone who’s currently sitting on council is that I’m very well aware of how much work a councillor does already, but also how much more work will be coming as we become Tantramar and the extra things that will need to be done as we build our community together. So it was a big decision. But in the long run, when it came right down to it, I just realized that this was something that I still had a big, big interest in, and I still care a lot about what happens to our community. So I still would like to be a part of, of building the new community of Tantramar.
CHMA: Do you have specific issues that you’re hoping to highlight if you’re elected to the new council?
AB: I think that my issues will be, as they always have been, as a counselor, as a member of our community, I’m, I am a teacher, I’m an educator. So children, and I have children, I have a young family, children, families, and all of the important things that our community needs to be a place for children and families. The environment is important for me. Health care, obviously, it’s really hard to have a family here if there’s not proper health care, proper spaces for families to live. Yeah. My platform per se, I don’t think has changed in my years on council.
CHMA: Okay. I wanted to ask specifically about a couple of issues that we’ve heard about.0 Housing is, you know, a sort of growing problem in terms of the shortage of housing and the affordability of it. Do you think the municipality should be doing something to address this crisis? And if so, what kind of things do you think it might be, you know, possible for the municipality to do?
AB: Well, I mean, it’s absolutely, there’s no question that housing is an issue. We lack housing. We, I mean, we have houses, but we lack spaces for people, we lack affordable housing. It is really complicated, because all of the money the municipality has comes from taxpayers. So everyone wants to do something about it. But at the same time, people, if you ask people, you know, would you like to invest your money into this house? Like where does the municipal responsibility or ability start and it’s something that is on, on the minds of the provincial government, believe it or not, also our government, the municipal government. We’ve been looking into things. And when I was at the UMNB, the Union of Municipalities of New Brunswick, there were a couple of forums and things on it. It’s definitely something that we need to think outside of the box about we need to figure out ways our community is growing not just because we’re becoming Tantramar instead of Sackville, and Dorchester and all of our outlying areas, but we are growing population-wise too, people are coming here and we don’t have spaces for them to live. It is a huge problem. Do I have an answer? No. But I definitely think that this is something that we need to look into and try to figure out a way that the municipality can assist whether that means some kinds of incentives for people who are building. I don’t know what that looks like, but it’s definitely something that needs to be done.
CHMA: We’ve also, you know, heard from readers and listeners, that transparency and openness is an issue. And that has a number of different definitions, obviously. So who knows what people mean, but what, you know, in your opinion, do you think the new town or the new government should be doing something differently? Or do you feel that, you know, there’s already a pretty good precedent for transparency and openness at town hall? Is there any changes you’d like to see at all there? Or do you feel good about it?
AB: Well, I could certainly give you a concise quick answer. But I think I’d like to explain myself first. I think that we have made in the time that I’ve been on council, we have made some real forays into making sure that we are more transparent. You know, whenever someone has brought up an issue about when they have access to the agenda, and the packages for the council meetings, those things have been adjusted and, and tried to meet the public’s needs that way. I know that there are people who still would like to be involved in more, but the only things that we do in camera, which I always find to be such an odd term, because in camera means the opposite. Those are the private meetings.
CHMA: Off camera [laughter]
AB: It’s just odd the way… they have to do with legal items, they have to do with personnel issues, sales of land, you know, I remember people being upset years ago, when we were building the holding pond, and there was information that wasn’t released until later. But if you’re selling land to people, and one person finds out that this person sold his for that much, and somebody else finds out that, you know, if their land is for sale and someone else is trying to…
There are things that can’t be released to the public. Because it’s unfair to the people that it’s about, it’s a privacy issue, personnel issues, you know. If we have issues within our staff, that is not something that should be… the whole discussion about it should not be something that just everyone can hear, for the privacy of the individuals involved.
I think we do a pretty good job with our transparency. I think it’s always good that we are reminded when people expect more or want more, so that we can look at it critically and decide, is this something that would be to the betterment of everyone? Is this something that we should do? And I think that in the past, in my time on council, we have proven that when a request comes up, that we’re willing to look at it, think about it, see if if it is something that we can do, and we have changed things to meet those needs, when it is appropriate.
So I think we do a pretty good job with being transparent. I think we should continue to work at it. And whenever we can do something better we should, I think it’s completely wrong for us to just say, we’re doing this good. And we’re always doing this good. And we don’t need to think about it any differently. But overall, I think we do a pretty good job now.
CHMA: Okay. Let’s talk a bit about amalgamation. That’s, you know, coming very soon. Can you give me a best and a worst sort of situation here, with this question? What are, what’s the thing you’re most looking forward to, or you think has the most potential for good in this new amalgamated municipality? And what do you think is going to be sort of the toughest thing and the hardest thing that the new town has to face?
AB: So I’m not sure I can give you a ‘one good’ and a ‘one bad.’ I think what I can, I think that amalgamation was needed. In a broad sense. It has been a difficult road through the whole process. As a municipal elected official, it has been difficult to not know when things are happening and how they are happening. It sort of has felt all the way through as, you know, oh, it’s need to know and you don’t need to know right now, which is difficult as someone who was elected by the citizens of the town to look after these things.
I think that it is needed, even though. And I think that the next year, two years, three years is going to be an incredible amount of work. That was part of the reason why I really thought hard about whether I wanted to reoffer or not, because I am well aware of everything from, you know, housekeeping, changing bylaws to reflect the new name of our municipality to looking critically at bylaws that we have in place that have worked or not worked for the Village of Dorchester for the Town of Sackville, and will they work or not work in our new community, those kinds of things, which is just a basic housekeeping thing.
The concept of, one thing that’s always worried me is that it feels like moving forward, we may end up having what feels like a two tiered system. Because Sackville proper at this point has, you know, a lot of sidewalks, a lot of streetlights, we have a way that our water billing is done, we have a tax rate outside of Sackville and, or in the Village of Dorchester, things are done differently.
And when we’re all one, obviously things can’t be done all the same right away, our tax rates will be different. Our water billing systems will be different. Some of us will be on municipal services, a larger number of us will not, the thing I’ve always felt proud about is that I’ve felt in my role, I’ve always thought ‘is this something that’s good for everyone? Is this good for the entire community, this vision?’ And I think it’s going to be tricky, as we become the town of Tantramar, to make sure that the decisions we’re making are still good for everyone, because it’s going to be a wider geographical place for us to be.
My concern is that it will take longer for us to feel like a united community. And I think that that will be the biggest goal moving forward or the trickiest one, is to make sure that everyone feels a part of Tantramar and don’t feel that they are left out or left behind. So that will be the trickiest. I think at the same time, that will also be the most exciting thing.
I’ve always felt that people who lived in Wood Point or Midgic or Dorchester, were people from my community anyway, we always have been. So this gives us an opportunity to be at the beginning of building the town of Tantramar. And I think that that is a really exciting thing. So it’s going to be a lot of work. But it also has the potential to be something wonderful. So I’m trying to think optimistically. It’ll be rough. But we will come out the other end, and we will be amazing.
CHMA: All right, Allison, is there anything else that you want people in Ward 3 to know before we let you go?
AB: Yeah, well, I like to think that my past record as a councillor for the Town of Sackville has, I’m proud of what I’ve done, I”m proud of, I’m proud of what I’ve been a part of. So I hope that people will look at my past track record. Do I want them to know anything else? I guess just that all along, I have been focussed on what would be best for Sackville. And I am excited at the possibility of having the opportunity to be someone whose role it will be to try and do what is best for Tantramar. I am looking forward to that possibility. So I hope that people will put their faith in me once again to make those, those hard decisions and to be a part of that.
CHMA: All right, well, thanks very much, Allison. I really appreciate you taking the time.
AB: Thank you. You too. Bye.
