The Sackville hospital. Health care in general. Educational opportunities. Housing needs. Roads and bridges. The environment. They were all top of mind as CHMA spoke with nine voters in the region to ask them, “When provincial candidates knock on your door this election campaign, what will you be asking them?”
Did you hear your concerns represented in the voices of your neighbours? If not, please get in touch with CHMA at news@chmafm.com. We’d like to hear what you are asking about during this provincial election campaign season.
What’s the plan on affordable housing?
Reginald Beal is personally feeling the housing pinch, and has also seen it affect his friends and family. The Sackville resident wants candidates to explain their plan to get more affordable housing, particularly in Sackville, and to give a timeline for when they can do it. He also wonders about what candidates will do about renters’ rights in the province.
How do you see your relationship with First Nations communities in the future?
Nicole Porter lives and works in Amlamgog First Nation and has a long list of questions including health care, education and climate change. But her main question will be, “how do you see our relationships with First Nations communities in the future?”
Are you in support of a total ban on hydro fracking?
Sackville poet and activist Marilyn Lerch says the grassroots movement in New Brunswick which achieved a moratorium on hydro fracking in the province is a “wonderful model of grassroots organizing,” and though she feels there’s also “so much that needs to be done with climate change”, her request for candidates is to “show me on their platform whether they are in support of a total ban on hydrofracking.”
How will you show that you are focussed on New Brunswickers?
As owner and operator of Loella’s Country Market in Little Shemogue, Stephen Robb is a vocal proponent of road infrastructure funding, especially along route 955, which he says is “unsafe for walking or bicycling, and it’s not particularly safe for driving either.”
But his primary question for candidates will be focus on the perception that the New Brunswick government is not focused on New Brunswickers, and is “more focused on corporations and budgets.” So Robb wants to know, “how would you go about changing that?”
What’s being done about education as a whole?
Jonelle Mace lives in Midgic, New Brunswick, and has four children in the K-12 education system in the Tantramar region. Mace is concerned about the “lack of opportunity for students who excel” in Tantramar, especially at the high school level. She’s concerned about the general literacy rate in the province, and her perception that “education seems more about behavioural management than it does education, sometimes.” That’s why her question for candidates is, “What are we doing to invest in really bright futures of our young people?”
What’s your position on an investigation into cases of unexplained neurological disorders in the province?
Sackville resident Janet Hammock says she’s focussed on the candidates positions on glyphosate, and the links to large numbers of unexplained neurological disorders being reported by a New Brunswick neurologist. “We have a problem here, and we need an investigation,” says Hammock. “And I’d like to know what your party’s position on that is.”
What’s your position on glyphosate spraying in New Brunswick’s woodlots?
Sharon Allen lives along the coastline in Little Shemgue, New Brunswick, but her priority question had to do with forests. “I am of the firm opinion that [glyphosate spraying] is very bad for our environment, and it’s something that needs to be looked at seriously,” says Allen. “I would like to hear from all the candidates on that position.”
How would you go about making roads safer?
Sharon Allen also says that “roads are something that comes up continually in our area.” Though she notes there’s been some patching on route 955, “there are still areas where there’s not much more than one lane.” Allen also points to highway 16, where two woman were recently killed in a head-on collision. Allen says she can understand that private property along the route makes twinning the highway challenging, “but there’s no reason why some passing lanes couldn’t be put in. A few passing lanes put in could save lives.”
Will you commit to protect 30% of New Brunswick land and ocean by 2030?
Kara Becker is co-owner of the Peep and Keep Ecotique in Dorchester. Though she will be casting her vote in another riding, Becker weighed in with her Dorchester question which she says is in addition to the big ticket items such as health care, housing, affordability and education. “In Dorchester, we’re in the Fundy Biosphere Reserve. We have the Nature Conservancy at Johnson’s Mills… I’d really like to see a commitment from the candidates to protect 30% of New Brunswick land and ocean by 2030 to help protect nature’s life support system.”
What will you do to get the Sackville hospital ER open 24 hours?
Phyllis Wheaton from Midgic, New Brunswick is focussed on access to the emergency room at the Sackville Memorial Hospital. “What will you do to get the hospital open 24 hours?” asks Wheaton. And in the meantime, “what will you do for us ‘rural, rural’ people living outside of big cities, outside of big towns, to get the first responders to us safely and in good time?”
