Municipal election season is upon us. Barring any pandemic tragedies, on May 10 Sackville will be heading to the polls to cast votes for the next group of people to sit around the town council table, even if it is a virtual one for the time being. In an effort to help inform you about who your candidates are, CHMA news plans to speak with all 12 council and two mayoralty candidates in the coming weeks.
Check out all our local elections coverage here.
This time we speak with council candidate Matt Noiles:
You can find out more about Matt Noiles’ campaign in his Facebook group.
TRANSCRIPT:
CHMA: Thanks for joining us. Can you start off by telling us a bit about yourself?
MATTHEW NOILES: Well, I am from Sackville, born and raised. I’ve been here almost 40 years now. I work in Moncton with Loblaws. I’ve been there 16 years. I’ve been married to my wife for a little over 20 years now. I have three young kids, a daughter who’s 10 that’s in Marshview, a son who’s eight in Salem, and a four-year-old son who is luckily able to stay at home with his mom. And that’s kind of kind of me in a nutshell.
CHMA: Do you have any history on council or previous involvement with town council?
MN: I do not. I have been on some committees through my work, but nothing related to council.
CHMA: So what made you decide to run?
MN: It’s something that I had on my list of things I wanted to do. And obviously, there’s some changes that need to happen. In order for that to happen, we need some new people on council to make those changes.
CHMA: So you’re thinking this is your time?
MN: Yeah.
CHMA: Do you have issues that you’re hoping to highlight in your campaign? Maybe give us an idea of what some of the changes are that you think are needed.
MN: Some of the things I’d like to see changed… Community engagement, like going out, listening to the community, seeing what they think needs to be changed and go from there. I’d like to see economic growth. Definitely we need more jobs in Sackville. Maybe work more on environmental—make sure all the policies and things are being followed in town. Creating more green jobs, things like that.
CHMA: Can you tell us what your favourite and least favourite things about Sackville are?
MN: My favourite thing is the community involvement, how if there’s a void in a community program, there’s always a parent who’s willing to step up and meet the needs. Even though it might make them come out of their comfort zone to do that.
I’m involved in Sackville minor baseball, Sackville minor hockey. I’m on both of those boards. And like I said, whenever there’s a need for a parent to step up and help volunteer to coach, there’s always someone there willing to do that, and I love that.
My least favourite thing? There’s not much that’s my least favourite in Sackville. I love it. The only thing I’d like to see change, like I said, is economic growth. Because I mean, I live in Sackville, but I have to drive the Moncton everyday to go to work. Now if I had the opportunity to stay in Sackville to work, I would absolutely do it.
CHMA: So you actually have quite a bit of volunteer experience in Sackville, then.
MN: I should have added that in earlier. I help coach Sackville minor hockey, I help coach minor baseball. I am on both boards. I’ve helped out in the past with the breakfast program. There’s other things that I’ve helped out with as well.
CHMA: It sounds like economic development, sort of getting more business up and running in Sackville is on your issue list.
MN: Yeah, I would say that. I mean, we need that growth.
CHMA: Do you have any thoughts on maybe what council might be doing or should be doing to help sort of bring that about?
MN: I’d like to see the council create a committee to go out and find possibilities of bringing work back to Sackville and creating more jobs. So that brings more money back into Sackville. But at the same time, that it’s not too much that it takes away from that small town feeling.
CHMA: Alright, Matt, is there is there anything else that you’d like people in Sackville to know?
MN: I mean, if anyone has any issues, they can reach out to me in person or they can reach out to my hotmail, or my Facebook group. If anyone has any questions, please feel to reach out to me because like I said, we need community engagement. We need to involve the community in order to fix the problems that we have.
CHMA: Alright, thanks very much for taking the time to speak with us today, Matt.
MN: Thank you very much.
