The post MAFA Member Resigns Due to Antisemitism Concerns first appeared on Tantramar Times.

The CCAC should not be affiliated with the Town Council in any shape or form. Originally a climate change roundtable was initiated by then Mayor John Higham so it has a history of being intertwined with the council, with members being appointed to it by the council. They even have a full-time climate change coordinator which was half paid for by EOS Eco-Energy.

As I mentioned before, there are various connections between people such as Eric Tsuz-King who is on the CCAC board, EOS Eco-Energy and even Mike Wilson, of the AIL plastics plant.

Instead, the committee should be a separate entity. Like any other resident or group, the committee could present its suggestions to the council at any point in time, which could then be considered and either accepted or rejected.

The post Sackville’s Climate Corruption first appeared on Tantramar Times.

Recently a request was made by a landowner to amend an existing by-law which bans drive-thrus from being built in Sackville, which has been in place since 2001. This would allow a new restaurant to be situated at the old Pizza Delight building on Mallard Drive.

The situation in Sackville presents a striking case of hypocrisy. While the local council purports to be fighting against ‘climate change’, as evident from their 22-year-old ban on new drive-thru establishments due to concerns about idling vehicles, the town seems to be taking a contradictory stand by allowing a plastics manufacturing plant to operate. As stated previously, there are possible reasons for this apparent contradiction.

The Atlantic Industries Limited (AIL) plastic pipe factory, situated on Walker Road, presents a number of concerns. The factory’s process involves melting high-density polyethylene (HDPE) pellets to produce pipes. The melting and reshaping of plastic are energy-intensive processes and often involve the release of harmful emissions. Even though the company assured that “no significant air emissions” would come from the factory under normal operating conditions, any deviation from these conditions could lead to the release of fumes, even if for a short duration.

Furthermore, the plant uses water from a well pump at a rate of 7.6 gallons per minute, an operation that could potentially impact the nearby aquifer. Although the company is apparently going to be transporting any holding tank waste to an approved disposal facility, the mere presence of such effluent storage tanks on the premises, which is located near the town water reservoir, introduces an element of risk, especially in the event of a leak or mishap.

During the approval process for the AIL plant, the CAO stated that the process was out of the town’s hands, but the banning of drive-thrus in Sackville shows that the council can act and take responsibility if they really wanted to.

So, while the Sackville council’s ban on drive-thrus may seem to indicate an interest in protecting the environment, the presence of a plastic manufacturing plant that uses a significant amount of energy, produces waste, and potentially threatens local water sources, seems to contradict this commitment.

The post Sackville Says No To Drive-Thrus, Yes to Plastics and Effluent first appeared on Tantramar Times.

I can’t believe what I just read! The AIL plastics plant is wreaking havoc on our community, and I’m downright furious! I’ve been living in this town for decades, and to see our environment being trashed by some careless corporation is absolutely infuriating.

Our beautiful blueberry fields, which we’ve cherished for years, are now being littered with plastic bags and garbage from AIL. Are they serious? How dare they ruin our farmlands, our ecosystems, and our wildlife! This isn’t just some simple mistake – it’s a slap in the face to our entire community!

And what’s up with all that dust during construction? It’s like they couldn’t care less about the people who live here! As an elderly resident, I’m more vulnerable to health risks, but it seems AIL doesn’t give a damn. Our well-being? Our property? Who cares, right? Well, I care, and I’m mad as hell!

The worst part is that it’s not just the dust and plastic pollution. There’s a whole list of potential risks that this plant could bring: air pollution from melting plastic, water pollution affecting our aquifer and reservoir, plastic fires – the list goes on! We tried to warn the Town Council, MLA, Sackville Climate Change Committee, and the New Brunswick Government, but did they listen? No! Instead, they turned a blind eye and let this disaster happen.

AIL better clean up their act and start treating our community with the respect we deserve. It’s time they took responsibility for their mess and put an end to this nightmare! Our town is not a dumping ground for their negligence.

I’m calling on everyone who cares about our town to stand up and demand action. Let’s make sure AIL and our local authorities know that we won’t sit back and let them destroy our beautiful community!

Fed up and fired up,

Angry AI Resident

The post Letter To The Editor: Re: AIL Plastics Plant’s Environmental Impact on Neighbouring Areas Raises Concerns first appeared on Tantramar Times.

AIL has been facing a backlash on social media for allowing a variety of plastic bags and garbage to spread into neighbouring properties. This incident should alarm local farmers and environmentalists, as plastic pollution poses a threat to the quality of crops, waterways, the local ecosystem, and wildlife.

Moreover, during the main construction phase of the facility, a considerable amount of dust blew onto adjacent properties. This caused distress among nearby residents who expressed concerns about the potential health risks and damage to their property. Dust can cause respiratory and other problems.

Responsible corporate behaviour is essential to build trust and maintain harmony within the communities where businesses operate. This includes taking necessary precautions to prevent pollution and ensuring minimal negative impact on the surrounding environment. AIL’s recent actions are at odds with this ethos, drawing attention to the need for a more conscientious approach.

It is crucial for AIL to take immediate corrective measures and implement long-term strategies to prevent future occurrences of such incidents. This may include:

1. Conducting a thorough investigation into the spread of plastic bags and garbage in the blueberry fields, followed by swift cleanup efforts.
2. Implementing a robust waste management system to prevent future pollution of the environment.
3. Establishing an effective dust control plan during construction and manufacturing processes to mitigate the impact on neighbouring properties.
4. Engaging in open dialogue with the community to address concerns and foster trust through transparency.
5. Collaborating with local environmental groups (who have to date been uninterested in this project for some reason) to monitor the impact of the plant on the environment and implement best practices.

The dust and plastic pollution that has already come from the AIL plant prior to opening is a bad omen for some of the other potential future risks such as air pollution from melting plastic, water pollution into the underlying aquifer and/or nearby Town reservoir and from the on-site effluent storage tanks and processes, along with fire hazards from plastics fires.

Prior to the plastics manufacturing plant construction, citizens (including engineers and biologists) expressed a variety of concerns to the Sackville Town Council, MLA, Sackville Climate Change Committee, and NB Govt which largely went ignored.

The post AIL Plastics Plant’s Environmental Impact on Neighbouring Areas Raises Concerns first appeared on Tantramar Times.

The Tantramar Community Concerns Facebook group with over 4800 members is one of many that has recently made this switch. Group administrators were bombarded with overwhelming amounts of spam, including fake duct cleaning services, fake buy/sell services, and fake accounts in general. After discussing the problem with the group members, the decision was made to make the group private.

By changing a group from public to private, administrators gain the ability to control who can join and participate in the group. By limiting membership to only those individuals who have been approved by the administrator, spammers and other unwanted users are prevented from joining. This creates a more engaged and focused community within the group, where members feel comfortable sharing ideas and discussing topics without fear of being bombarded by irrelevant or unwanted messages.

Additionally, a private Facebook group can create a sense of exclusivity and value for members. When membership is limited to only those approved by the group administrator, it can create a sense of belonging to a special or exclusive community, leading to a greater sense of investment and participation from members who feel they are part of something unique and valuable.

One of the criticisms of this change given by a local resident is that this was done to reduce transparency of what is going on in Tantramar. This is pretty ridiculous as anyone can still join the group and see all the posts, as well as the fact that other local groups are also private, such as Sackville NB Community Chatter, Tantramar Tidings and Tantramar NB Community Chatter. These other local groups went private for the same reasons.

To join a private group, interested individuals must answer a series of questions and agree to the group rules, which helps protect members from things such as harassment. While some may argue that making a group private reduces transparency, it is important to note that anyone can still join the group and see all the posts. In fact, other local groups, such as Sackville NB Community Chatter, Tantramar Tidings, and Tantramar NB Community Chatter, have also made the switch to private for the same reasons.

One of the implications of going private is that it is more difficult to share posts on Facebook since the group’s posts are private. However, this can be easily remedied by sharing the link that is included in the post, if any.

In conclusion, changing a Facebook group from public to private is an effective way to combat spam messages and unwanted solicitations on the platform. By creating a more exclusive and focused community, group administrators can encourage greater engagement and participation from members while also preventing spammers and other unwanted users from detracting from the group’s overall quality. As more and more Facebook groups make the switch to private, it is clear that this trend is here to stay.

The post Tantramar Community Concerns Facebook Group Goes Private first appeared on Tantramar Times.

I asked for 30 bullet points as the initial 10 point summary was not detailed enough. Note that the YouTubeDigest extension contains the timestamps in the video.

• The meeting is called to order.
• The agenda is approved by motion.
• Sackville’s goal is to reduce capital borrowing and eliminate debt by using capital from the operating budget.
• Sackville may borrow for utility budgets, but it has a lot of deficits to address, with pipes that were put in 70-80 years ago.
• Sackville’s asset management plan increased by CPI from the prior year.
• Sackville should have done for Capital Revenue in 2023 with CPI increase.
• Dorchester’s budget breakdown for 2023:
• Dorchester has benefited from a capital letter revenue of $20,000 on average over the past three years, and now has $129,500 in capital letter revenue to work with.
• Provided funds for wages, training, travel, memberships and equipment
• Overall capital budget of $1.5 million for General Government Services
• Evaluation of whether to go TMR or move to a different type of dispatch with other organizations.
• Allocation of $32,000 to design and develop a training facility that combines vehicle extrication and building construction training.
• A fire truck purchase in 2024 for Dorchester, costing 800,000 and would be included in the borrowing application.
• Fire trucks have a life cycle of 25 years, with one replaced every five years for the last 15 to 20 years.
• Issues with storm sewers in Sackville and Dorchester. Recommending $60k for storm sewer maintenance in Sackville at the Main Street and Donald Harper area. Upgrading of cross culverts is necessary.
• Replacing two old vehicles and one backhoe with new ones.
• Improvements for designated highways are budgeted for $350,000 with a 15% allocation of funding to Dorchester for $35,000, which will go as far as the money allows and stops once it runs out.
• Discussing the sidewalk plows and why the older one is being sent to Dorchester instead of keeping the new one for Sackville.
• Assessment of upgrading the fire hall size needs to be evaluated as they progress and may require renovation.
• Replace Zamboni at Civic Center with electric Zamboni
• Investment priorities in the budget for 2023 include the remediation of the former Town Hall and development of the Dorchester fire hall.
• Benefits of using an electric machine over burning propane fumes on the inside of a closed-in facility.
• Development of a regional approach towards tourism may be implemented by the regional service commission.
• Sackville is available for 2023 but all money is allocated to paving various streets
• Sackville had around 3.5 million dollars built up in our general capital reserve fund to pay off our portion of Lawrence Street phase three and the fire truck purchase with our capital letter Revenue and not borrow.
• Recommendation of a call for a Request for Proposal (RFP) for the design of Lagoon upgrades to ensure that there is enough infrastructure money for the project before the construction phase.
• Annual water treatment plant upgrade and Capital upgrades for 2022
• The two sections of stage are hay carts used for events like Sappy Fest, but for Fall Fair, a covered stage is rented.
• Late tenders are likely to come in high during that time of the year.
• Temporary financing of three years allows overdraft protection on bank account while large projects are ongoing.

I also had the meeting summarize as an 8 page article which is available here in PDF form:

The post Electric Zamboni – Latest Tantramar Council Meeting Summarized By ChatGPT first appeared on Tantramar Times.

If you’ve been busy and generally ignoring politics, it’s safe to say that this strategy isn’t working. By ignoring politics, people with vastly different ideologies are making significant changes that have more and more of an effect on your daily lives.

Some things that you could email the councillors about are (I’ll hopefully add more over time to this post):

-lowering property taxes (ie. the municipal mil rate) which will help with the affordable housing issue (significant part of the cost of home ownership). For example homes in the $390K price range will cost you $6000 per year in property taxes in the Sackville area or $500 per month.

-cutting spending which will be required to support the lowering of property taxes. This could include the reduction of Town staff and a variety of non-essential spending.

-reducing crime and drug use (often the driving force of crime) by increasing the policing presence and not letting repeat offenders out on the streets over and over again. Get drug users into treatment facilities with strong dissuasion techniques, as I wrote out in my previous article.

-improving health care access by encouraging walk-in clinics and more private health care. Not everyone needs to go to the hospital but they can’t get quick access to a doctor in the evenings or on weekends. While tele-health is a welcome addition, not everything can be addressed via this online method. A recent poll shows most Canadians favour adding private health care options (although article has many public health care biases).

-removing the climate change committee from its ties to the Town. For example recently a committee member was voted to be extended for another year by the council. This committee should be completely separate from the Tantramar government. The committee was started by a previous Mayor as a climate roundtable but at this point it should be a separate entity with its own funding. There is also a full time position funded partially by the Town. The committee can do whatever it wants, fund itself and make recommendations to the council just as any citizen is free to do.

-implementing a road use agreement for businesses located outside of Tantramar that are using heavy trucks on our roads. These roads get damaged quite a bit and often go without being repaired for years. But when they are eventually repaired or patched they are funded by the taxpayers.

-improving the notification process to the community when changes are being implemented such as rezoning, building approvals, etc. For example, many residents were unaware of the AIL plastics plant going in on Walker Road until they saw the 12 acres of trees being clear cut.

-improving transparency. Jamie Burke apparently had quite a stranglehold on communications (routing everything through him before councillors or the public could see the reports). Most of the existing councillors at the time and Mayor Shawn Mesheau were seemingly fine with all this as they didn’t push back on any of this and make any changes to improve this that I’m aware of.

The post Contact Your Tantramar Councillors first appeared on Tantramar Times.

Harm reduction refers to a series of protocols that are used to manage a person’s addiction, not to get them off of the drugs. The leading harm-reduction advocate Mark Tyndall believes that the goal of sobriety is outdated and should be abandoned. This means that the advocates are focused on maintaining and enabling drug use behaviour and not trying to get the drug addicts into treatment.

Harm reduction policies have arguably been an unmitigated disaster. Drug use and crime is rising wherever these policies are adopted, such as in Moncton (also see this article) and Vancouver. The author encourages readers to watch the Vancouver is Dying documentary (free on YouTube) in which a drug users says: “Harm reduction. Somebody’s got a sense of humour, man. ‘Cause that (censored) ain’t helping nobody, man. It’s helping everybody get high more”.

Also from the documentary: “According to the Vancouver Police Department, unprovoked attacks on strangers have jumped 35% since 2019.”

That is why in November 2022, the newly-elected NDP premier in British Columbia (BC) has reversed course on its harm reduction approach with its Safer Communities Action Plan. “There will be teams to remove the severely mental ill from the streets, addictions programs that prioritize detox rather than safe consumption and even tightened bail policies intended to keep chronic offenders behind bars”.  While BC is reversing course, it is interesting to note that Ensemble Moncton who installed the needle vending machine in Sackville also enables drug users to take drugs in their facilities.

Due to BC’s acknowledgment of the harm reduction policies’ failure, these policies need to be finally abandoned in Sackville as well. Just this year in March 2022, the RCMP and the Cumberland County Integrated Street Crime Enforcement Unit (SCEU) has charged 5 people from Sackville with drug trafficking and other crimes. From the RCMP website: “During the searches and enforcement actions, police arrested a number of people and seized cocaine, methamphetamine, psilocybin, prescription drugs, items that could be used to produce cocaine, […]”. In 2022, Sackville has had a number of assaults, break and enters, and thefts.

Just recently in May 2022, CBC wrote an article about the worsening drug and crime problems in nearby Moncton (the city where the other needle vending machine was also installed by Ensemble Greater Moncton).

Many of the harm reduction advocates also focus on the issue of homelessness for these drug addicted and mentally ill people. But between 2017 and 2021, 50% of the overdose deaths were done in Single Resident Occupancy (SROs) and other supportive housing. The documentary also mentions that “70% of fatal overdoses happen at home alone on the living room floor”.

Portugal has had widespread success in reducing drug use and related deaths through its Dissuasion Commission. In the article they say, “Under the policy, when police come across people who are using or possessing drugs, they confiscate their substances and refer them to a Dissuasion Commission. This Commission is comprised of one official from the legal arena and two from the health or social service arenas who determine whether and to what extent the person demonstrates dependency on drugs.”

“These Commissions – which operate independently from the criminal justice system – make decisions on a case-by-case basis. If the committee believes the person’s use of drugs is not a problem, they can simply dismiss the case and the application of sanctions altogether. Alternatively, they can impose administrative sanctions that range from fines to social work or group therapy. The majority of people who appear before the Commissions are deemed to be using drugs non-problematically and receive no sanction or intervention, but rather a provisional suspension of the proceedings. If they are not found in the possession of drugs again within six months, the matter is completely dropped. For people who appear to use drugs frequently and problematically, the Commissions will make referrals to treatment, which is always voluntary and never mandated. If people with substance use disorder opt not to enter treatment, administrative sanctions – such as the revocation of a driving license or community service – can be applied, but rarely are.”

So by abandoning the ineffective (or even harmful) harm reduction policies as the main focus, we can direct drug users and the mentally ill off the streets and into treatment facilities. We can then hope to reverse this troubling trend of increased drug use, overdoses and crime in our communities.

The post “Harm Reduction” Drug Policy Focus Used In Sackville Abandoned By British Columbia’s NDP first appeared on Tantramar Times.

However, a short time after his email was sent it became clear that not only will effluent be created in the plastic pipe manufacturing process but this effluent will be stored on site in a tank that will be eventually trucked off site for treatment.

In an email from Shreesha Sanjaya (Process Improvement EIT for AIL) to the Environment and Local Government (ELG) and cc’d to Mike Wilson (AIL/Right Coast Realty) dated July 6, 2022: “Any contaminated water collected in the pit sump and sent to a 1800L holding tank to be sent out for processing (holding tank location in mechanical drawings).”

Given AIL’s track record of having current contamination on their Dorchester site from fuel tanks (see image below) there is a substantiated concern that these effluents could leak into the aquifer below. This aquifer is used by local residents and feeds Silver Lake. Unfortunately the AIL plastics plant is situated above a permeable soil layer making any leaks more likely to enter the aquifer.

Also when government personnel noted that contaminants would be created in the process, an email was written from Michel Poirier from ELG: “Given your indication that fluids released would end up in the holding tank for “appropriate disposal”, it is recommended AIL conduct laboratory analysis of the fluids in question to identify potential contaminants that may be present and to ensure proper disposal options are identified as a result.“

Unfortunately these suggestions by the government are not a requirement.

Michel also asked a series of interesting questions on July 7, 2022 which the author hasn’t seen the answers to but could exist: “There is an indication that a sump pit is going to be used to collect processed water which they described as contaminated. There isn’t a lot of information in the drawings that speak to the sump pit’s impermeability or control measures to prevent leakage into the environment. Additionally, there should be more information provided to understand how the contaminated water collected from the sump pit, that is going to be pumped into an 1,800 L tote, will be processed. For example, type and level of contamination, is it hazardous waste, how is the contamination level going be measured, where is it going to go, who is going to collect it, etc.

How will “clean” water be determined before it is directed to the stormwater management system?“

Given the previous contamination of the former AIL facility along with the Town and Climate Change Advisory Committee’s seeming lack of interest in this plastic pipe manufacturing plant operating in Sackville, it is perfectly reasonable to be concerned about the future quality of life in Sackville.

The post Mayor Shawn Mesheau Incorrect About AIL Plastics Plant Effluent first appeared on Tantramar Times.