Hear this story as reported on Tantramar Report:
During Sunday’s miserable, cold, Maritime-spring drizzle, dozens of Nova Scotians and New Brunswickers gathered along either side of the Missaguash River to protest the ongoing closure of the provincial border to any travel deemed non-essential.
Jodi Thompson and her young son Oliver Sears, carrying a sign saying “I miss my grandma”, were among them. Thompson is from Amherst, but lives in Sackville. “All of our family—grandparents, my parents, my aunts, and uncles are all in Nova Scotia,” says Thompson. “Most of them are in Amherst, just eight minutes away,” she says, echoing the sign her son Oliver is holding. “They’re so close, but we can’t access them. And it’s just been a really rough time. So we’re here to show our support.”
Thompson says she wants the provincial governments to acknowledge the connections between Sackville and Amherst, and make it possible for her and her son to see their family again.
Angela Varner lives in Point de Bute, and also showed up in the rain on Sunday to protest the border closure.
“There’s so many reasons why this border should open,” says Varner. “The mental health strain on the communities is immeasurable. People are depressed. People need their support systems. And sometimes over the phone or on a video chat does not cut it,” says Varner.
Varner’s one and a half year old daughter has been unable to visit her father’s family in Nova Scotia since the border closed in November, and she has missed appointments in Nova Scotia due to the border closure. She also says the cost of groceries and other necessities in Sackville is higher, and she has been unable to access specialty items, like food for her pet lizard, due to the border closure.
“When there is a need for border restrictions, I can completely understand that,” says Varner. “I was in support in the beginning.” But the low case numbers in Nova Scotia and most of New Brunswick outside of the Zone 4 outbreak have cause Varner some confusion and frustration over why border restrictions persist.
She cites the community bubbling happening between other communities such as Listiguj and Campbellton, and wonders why something similar can’t happen in the Tantramar border region.
“When we have it under control and people are doing what they’re supposed to be doing—sanitizing, mask-wearing, things like that—then there’s shouldn’t be a need,” says Varner.
Laura Crawley and her friend Jennifer Walters came from Moncton to protest, carrying signs citing the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. “We’re Canadians,” says Crawley. “We have a right to travel within our country. We should be able to travel out of our country as well… That is our right. So that’s what we’re here to fight for.”
Though Crawley supports lifting all inter-provincial and international border restrictions, she says she was there on Sunday to focus on the Nova Scotia-New Brunswick border.
Protest organizers had pleaded with participants online to keep the action focussed on the local border issue, and not incorporate issues around mask-wearing which has been the subject on some protests recently.
BUBBLE POSSIBLE ON MAY 3
The border with Nova Scotia was due to re-open today, in a plan announced last month by the Atlantic premiers. But hopes were dashed on April 13, when Nova Scotia premier Iain Rankin re-instated border restrictions, and said the Atlantic Bubble would not reform in April. The Atlantic Premiers have now settled on May 3—two weeks from today—as the potential re-opening date for provincial borders in the Atlantic provinces.
