Atlantic Canadian Politics Thread

[adamuptownsj]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Not really. Even with their shaky English they are still way more bilingual than 90-95% of anglophones in New Brunswick.

At least they try.

Try, or need to? Anglo New Brunswickers have almost zero need, day-to-day, even monthly, to speak a lick of French. No one consumes French media, speaks French at work, and so on. Not so for Francophones. It's just numbers and geography.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by adamuptownsj

Try, or need to? Anglo New Brunswickers have almost zero need, day-to-day, even monthly, to speak a lick of French. No one consumes French media, speaks French at work, and so on. Not so for Francophones. It's just numbers and geography.

True to a point though at least part of this is by design: a lot has been done over our history to render French "useless" in Canada.

And another thing is that Anglo-Canadians often claim that French is useless on the one hand and then bitterly complain it's being imposed unfairly in situations where it turns out it isn't.

[Taeolas]

Originally Posted by CharlotteCountyLogan

In some local news the PCs have nominated a candidate in Fundy the Isles Saint John West. The nominee is a local high school teacher who serves on the fire department and has a impressive educational background.

Wonder if Higgs is hoping to have a different teacher in the legislature to replace Hogan with if he somehow wins the election. As is, Hogan's burned most of his bridges with the Education system, and is pretty much only there because he's a Higgs Yes-man.

[Sunnybrae]

Originally Posted by EnvisionSaintJohn

There’s no one to blame for not following through with it other than Higgs and the ruling PC party.

Its fine to blame Higgs and the current government especially since they didn't follow through with what was said. What about all the other governments since bilingualism was enacted? This should have been done in 1969 by Louis Robichaud. What about Richard Hatfield, Bernard Lord, the great Frank McKenna? Any of them since 69?

[CharlotteCountyLogan]

Originally Posted by Taeolas

Wonder if Higgs is hoping to have a different teacher in the legislature to replace Hogan with if he somehow wins the election. As is, Hogan's burned most of his bridges with the Education system, and is pretty much only there because he's a Higgs Yes-man.

I think that is a good theory. Hogan has burned a lot of bridges and Ian Lee is new to elected politics and would have a clean sheet

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

Originally Posted by Sunnybrae

Its fine to blame Higgs and the current government especially since they didn't follow through with what was said. What about all the other governments since bilingualism was enacted? This should have been done in 1969 by Louis Robichaud. What about Richard Hatfield, Bernard Lord, the great Frank McKenna? Any of them since 69?

I blame people more than the governments. Bilingualism has been a boogeyman in NB since its inception… if Montreal can have 50/50 bilingual schools so can New Brunswick, at least for the English speaking population. French Immersion is only a fraction of Anglophone students in the NB public school system, replacing both the French Immersion and English school systems within a bilingual one would be a tremendous idea, and set many more high school graduates up to continue learning French and attain bilingual status.

It absolutely matters for who composes our government bureaucracy, and bilingualism still impacts the private job market too. There’s lots of non government jobs, even in almost entirely Anglophone Saint John, where being bilingual matters for getting the job, but doesn’t really matter for actually doing the job. Bilingual schools will at least help far more high school graduates be able to put bilingual or partially bilingual on their resumes.

As someone who moved here from another province, official bilingualism at the provincial and municipal level can really seem like a bit much at times. In reality Saint John is not a bilingual city, yet officially, Saint John is absolutely a bilingual city, which honestly seems ridiculous and excessive.

Based on the requirements for admission to the French School system, and recent immigration trends, I think the demographics at Samuel De Champlain School and other French Schools around the province will be radically different in the near future.

Two unilingual anglophones can’t send their kid to French School, but all it takes is one parent to speak English as their non native language for their kids to qualify to attend French school. I think there will be far more students enrolled in the French system who show up with zero French skills upon entering kindergarten, because of this acceptance of students with at least one parent who is not a native English speaker, and it could possibly make language politics as they pertain to education even more divisive into the future.

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

https://www.onf.ca/film/acadie_acadie/

This is a tremendous film on how NB became a bilingual province, but there’s one glaring omission. Our national film board of Canada in Montreal has not provided any English subtitles for non French speakers to understand the film.

YouTube has autogenerated French to English translated subs, but I don’t believe Google voice recognition can fully understand Chiac. This is a really important historical film, and it deserves official bilingual subtitles. For that matter, all of the NFB should have bilingual subtitles in English and French.

I should be able to watch the French TV stations they make us pay for with cable packages in NB with English subtitles. There’s quite a lot of interesting stuff on those French channels, but I have a pretty limited knowledge of French

It’s 2024, it shouldn’t be that hard to have proper bilingual closed captioning so English speakers can actually watch the French Channels that they pay for.

All I can say is NB is a lot more positive than Quebec and their draconian French language police… I love Montreal, but I feel the impacts of the language laws are more and more apparent every-time I return. NB is at least moderately proud of being the only bilingual province, while Anglophones in Montreal are literally victims of draconian language policing and truly excessive language politics that make Anglophones feel unwelcome in their own city.

Bilingualism in NB could be improved and not seem so excessive to Anglophones while still maintaining proper levels of service needed for Francophones around the province, whom are basically entirely bilingual outside of Northern New Brunswick. You still feel more welcome as an Anglophone inside a Tim Hortons in Caraquet than you do as one in Montreal, a basically completely bilingual city. Quebec clearly has a lot to learn from New Brunswick in terms of making bilingualism work and granting linguistic rights to Anglophones in Montreal like Francophones had to fight people like Moncton Mayor Leonard Jones to achieve their own linguistic rights.

Overall, NB makes bilingualism work without it being totally dismal like the situation is for Anglophones in Quebec, but there’s still room to make it less divisive and more people bilingual.

[Sunnybrae]

Originally Posted by EnvisionSaintJohn

I blame people more than the governments. Bilingualism has been a boogeyman in NB since its inception… if Montreal can have 50/50 bilingual schools so can New Brunswick, at least for the English speaking population. French Immersion is only a fraction of Anglophone students in the NB public school system, replacing both the French Immersion and English school systems within a bilingual one would be a tremendous idea, and set many more high school graduates up to continue learning French and attain bilingual status.

It absolutely matters for who composes our government bureaucracy, and bilingualism still impacts the private job market too. There’s lots of non government jobs, even in almost entirely Anglophone Saint John, where being bilingual matters for getting the job, but doesn’t really matter for actually doing the job. Bilingual schools will at least help far more high school graduates be able to put bilingual or partially bilingual on their resumes.

As someone who moved here from another province, official bilingualism at the provincial and municipal level can really seem like a bit much at times. In reality Saint John is not a bilingual city, yet officially, Saint John is absolutely a bilingual city, which honestly seems ridiculous and excessive.

Based on the requirements for admission to the French School system, and recent immigration trends, I think the demographics at Samuel De Champlain School and other French Schools around the province will be radically different in the near future.

Two unilingual anglophones can’t send their kid to French School, but all it takes is one parent to speak English as their non native language for their kids to qualify to attend French school. I think there will be far more students enrolled in the French system who show up with zero French skills upon entering kindergarten, because of this acceptance of students with at least one parent who is not a native English speaker, and it could possibly make language politics as they pertain to education even more divisive into the future.

I use to think as you do. I really did. I thought a fully bilingual education system for anglophones was the solution for jobs and the linguistic divide. As time went on, I guess I have become a cynical old man. My reality became, its not what you know but who you know. I'm probably wrong in all this like most things (as the wife tells me). I see grandkids and nieces and nephews all graduate from french emersion, only to loose it, yet still live productive lives and really, just don't care. They are more concerned with sexual identity and what tattoo they want next.

[adamuptownsj]

Candidate update.

PCs at 34 candidates; other than SJ Harbour the seats without candidates are all Acadian. A while back I heard about a push for 'popular' local elected officials from up north, maybe the PCs intend to drop a lot of nominations at once later this summer. The only one of these that's realistically competitive is Champdore-Irishtown, which is scheduled next week. None of the others are scheduled.

Liberals are at 41 nominees, only Dieppe-Memramcook is Liberal-held among the missing (the others are PC held excluding Green Tantramar). Six more are scheduled before mid-August, leaving only Carleton-Victoria and Kings Centre. Gotta wonder if they're trying to recruit Crossman for the latter.

Greens not really going anywhere fast, still at 27 candidates. Nothing in the Upper River Valley yet, but that'll be their worst part of the province anyway. No public-facing events listed.

All in all, nothing unusual or alarming amongst the three parties in the Legislature except for the PC's regional gap.

For the also-rans...

NDP up to 16, no public events calendar either. I presume they'll get a reasonably full slate, better than 2020's 33 candidates at least. Anything less, their reason for being becomes too tenuous. I don't think the party folds but it's an increasingly unserious operation.

Alliance at 6, nothing public planned. I'm increasingly unsure what the PA actually is. They seem to have moved away from their niche as a vaguely libertarian/populist 'right wing protest vote' party aimed at rural and small-town Anglos since losing their MLAs, and the only recent issue on their website is... a rent control demand. Higgs seems to have tamped down his own right flank pretty well, and anyone voting against the PCs from the centre will likely have an agreeable Liberal candidate to pick. I don't think they make it to the 2028 (or earlier) election at this rate.

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

Originally Posted by adamuptownsj

Candidate update.

PCs at 34 candidates; other than SJ Harbour the seats without candidates are all Acadian. A while back I heard about a push for 'popular' local elected officials from up north, maybe the PCs intend to drop a lot of nominations at once later this summer. The only one of these that's realistically competitive is Champdore-Irishtown, which is scheduled next week. None of the others are scheduled.

Liberals are at 41 nominees, only Dieppe-Memramcook is Liberal-held among the missing (the others are PC held excluding Green Tantramar). Six more are scheduled before mid-August, leaving only Carleton-Victoria and Kings Centre. Gotta wonder if they're trying to recruit Crossman for the latter.

Greens not really going anywhere fast, still at 27 candidates. Nothing in the Upper River Valley yet, but that'll be their worst part of the province anyway. No public-facing events listed.

All in all, nothing unusual or alarming amongst the three parties in the Legislature except for the PC's regional gap.

For the also-rans...

NDP up to 16, no public events calendar either. I presume they'll get a reasonably full slate, better than 2020's 33 candidates at least. Anything less, their reason for being becomes too tenuous. I don't think the party folds but it's an increasingly unserious operation.

Alliance at 6, nothing public planned. I'm increasingly unsure what the PA actually is. They seem to have moved away from their niche as a vaguely libertarian/populist 'right wing protest vote' party aimed at rural and small-town Anglos since losing their MLAs, and the only recent issue on their website is... a rent control demand. Higgs seems to have tamped down his own right flank pretty well, and anyone voting against the PCs from the centre will likely have an agreeable Liberal candidate to pick. I don't think they make it to the 2028 (or earlier) election at this rate.

Seems the NDP is being run by a bunch of younger people from Kings County, including their leader residing in Quispamsis. Would sure be interesting if the NDP tried to make amalgamation an election issue this time around. That’s really the best they can do right? …try and move the other parties to the left in specific policy areas. Not even the Greens seem to want touch the issue of amalgamations, but the NDP really has nothing to lose, and they’d have some added credibility on the issue considering their leader is from Quispamsis.

Hopefully the PA has a stronger presence than that… we may need them to do God’s work and deny the PCs some seats… this election is shaping up to be much closer than it should be. I think Susan Holt will get a bit of a Momala Harris bump… if the Democrats run an effective campaign for the first woman to win the Presidency, that could have quite a positive impact for Holt to become the first female Premier of NB. It’s going to be quite the election season NB, that’s for sure.

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

The province needs to step up and build better homeless shelters, transitional housing, and public housing. More importantly, there needs to be a far bigger push for affordable rental housing to be built. It would be a totally legitimate use of the surplus for the provide to finance affordable housing.

There seems to be little incentive for private developers to build affordable rental housing, but all kinds of incentive for the province to build it… not only is an important issue to many New Brunswickers, more affordable rental housing will help us retain immigrants who will be more willing to stay in NB, rather than moving on to to larger centres in other provinces once they get PR.

Plus, in theory, the government should be a more benevolent landlords than a private landlords or a property management corporation, and the profits could go then be reinvested to build more rental housing.

Clearly, we need to see a radical change in order to drastically increase rental housing stock, which needs to be done one way or another to keep up with NB’s demographic growth… government owned affordable rental housing would definitely be a radical, and impactful solution to the ongoing housing crunch. Yet, is there a single political party in NB that actually supports this approach?

[sailor734]

Received this today.....Wonder who the candidate of "national interest" is that the federal conservatives are planning to parachute into Saint John?

23 July 2024

Dear Saint John Kennebecasis Riding Member:
Thank you for supporting my candidacy in the nomination race for our riding. I am honored.
I began this journey with a series of interviews, both locally and in Ottawa, with the
Conservative Party to ensure that my candidacy would be legitimate and that no favored
candidates were waiting in the wings. Given my experience as a physician, medical leader, and
small business owner, I was encouraged to run.
Francine and my team have done an amazing job. If the race were held now, we would win the
nomination. In just a few weeks, we made Ottawa take notice. Thank you to all those who got
involved.
The National Conservative party has now indicated they have a different nominee of “national
interest” whom they prefer and will now be running as the nominee in this riding. Although this
person lives in Ontario, they have past roots in our province. Despite my protest to the upper
levels of the party, it has been made clear that my path to the nomination has ended. The rules
of the party and recent examples in other ridings indicate that a parachute candidate will win a
nomination. The Party has avenues to support or supplant their candidate of choice. “There is
no path forward”.
Democracy is complicated. I am trying to see the bigger picture. I entered this race to be an
experienced, respected voice within the party. The party now feels they have found a better
candidate that will be the nominee. I disagree. But I also don’t want a protracted nomination
controversy to put Saint John Kennebecasis at risk of losing the election and not being inside
the new government.
16 months is a very long time in politics. If there is one, the nomination vote is not expected to
be anytime soon. Circumstances may change. For the time being I will be suspending my bid for
the nomination. We will not be actively campaigning but will wait to see what unfolds.
I am very sorry to bring you this news,
Thank you again for your support.
Most Sincerely,
Jeff Steeves

[adamuptownsj]

Originally Posted by sailor734

Received this today.....Wonder who the candidate of "national interest" is that the federal conservatives are planning to parachute into Saint John?

Bernard Lord? They said 'New Brunswick' roots, not Saint John. I can't fathom them picking somebody with no connection to the city to run here when there's literally dozens of open, winnable seats in carpetbagging-friendly Southern Ontario. Must be someone fancy to bump an ophthalmologist who's the past head of the NB Medical Society out of the race. Odd decision in a province this parochial.

[darkharbour]

Originally Posted by adamuptownsj

Bernard Lord? They said 'New Brunswick' roots, not Saint John. I can't fathom them picking somebody with no connection to the city to run here when there's literally dozens of open, winnable seats in carpetbagging-friendly Southern Ontario. Must be someone fancy to bump an ophthalmologist who's the past head of the NB Medical Society out of the race. Odd decision in a province this parochial.

Agreed, and while Saint John may be quite conservative historically, we also have a history of supporting personality over party in many past instances. Parachuting in a candidate might insult the same conservative base, who can be wary of change and "outsiders" at times. Watch it be Pierre Poilievre

Also, does Bernard live in Ontario still? I thought he was CEO of Medavie now.

[sailor734]

Originally Posted by adamuptownsj

Bernard Lord? They said 'New Brunswick' roots, not Saint John. I can't fathom them picking somebody with no connection to the city to run here when there's literally dozens of open, winnable seats in carpetbagging-friendly Southern Ontario. Must be someone fancy to bump an ophthalmologist who's the past head of the NB Medical Society out of the race. Odd decision in a province this parochial.

Lots yet to happen but there might be a chance to see a SJ MP in a relatively significant cabinet post. Something we haven’t seen since the Gerry Merrithew days.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by darkharbour

Also, does Bernard live in Ontario still? I thought he was CEO of Medavie now.

Bernie is indeed the CEO of Medavie, based out of Moncton.

[adamuptownsj]

Must be a private-sector figure. An Oland or a McCain?

[CharlotteSJ]

Has to be someone with no Saint John area roots or ties, but vague provincial ones.
They must have a strong political/wealth background for this to be enabled/happening too.
The wolves are already in our provincial chicken coop, sounds like they're coming into our federal one too.

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

Wayne Long has made like 4 posts in a row about the protestors disrupting the grand opening event for Ihtoli-maqahamok, and has even called out certain constituents of his by name in some of these posts. I have to ask, is this really appropriate behaviour by an MP? Imo, it seems really unprofessional.

I think the protestors are ridiculous to say the least, but I also don't think they did anything illegal. Wayne seems to be contradicting himself saying he supports their right to protest, while also saying they shouldn't have protested where they did, and how they did.

He's even gone as far as saying he wants the Muslim Association and the Newcomers Centre to speak out on this issue, which seems flipping ridiculous. The Israel-Palestine conflict is one of the most controversial issues in the history of World Politics.. what does our local MP really expect to achieve with these posts? If you ask me, it seems like he's just stirring the pot.

I wasn't there to see it in person, but I think our MP for Saint John-Rothesay needs to grow a thicker skin. These posts make him look like an even bigger goof than he already is.

There were police on scene, and no one was arrested. It seems to me like Wayne has probably already went to the police, didn't like their response, and has decided to call them out on social media instead, because he knows the public is with him, regardless of people's right to protest. I don't know if these posts are against the code of conduct for MPs, but these are not the type of posts you really want to see from your MP. What do y'all think? What is Wayne Long really trying to accomplish here with these posts other than get people riled up even more on Facebook?

[CharlotteCountyLogan]

Originally Posted by EnvisionSaintJohn

Wayne Long has made like 4 posts in a row about the protestors disrupting the grand opening event for Ihtoli-maqahamok, and has even called out certain constituents of his by name in some of these posts. I have to ask, is this really appropriate behaviour by an MP? Imo, it seems really unprofessional.

I think the protestors are ridiculous to say the least, but I also don't think they did anything illegal. Wayne seems to be contradicting himself saying he supports their right to protests, while also saying they shouldn't have protested where they did, and how they did.

He's even gone as far as saying he wants the Muslim Association and the Newcomers Centre to speak out on this issue, which seems flipping ridiculous. The Israel-Palestine conflict is one of the most controversial issues in the history of World Politics.. what does our local MP really expect to achieve with these posts? If you ask me, it seems like he's just stirring the pot.

I wasn't there to see it in person, but I think our MP for Saint John-Rothesay needs to grow a thicker skin. These posts make him look like an even bigger goof than he already is.

There were police on scene, and no one was arrested. It seems to me like Wayne has probably already went to the police, didn't like their response, and has decided to call them out on social media instead, because he knows the public is with him. Regardless of if these posts are against the code of conduct for MPs, these are not the type of posts anyone likes to really see their MP make. What do y'all think? What is Wayne Long really trying to accomplish here with these posts other than get people riled up even more on Facebook?

This is not the first time Wayne has called out his constituents by name on social media for committing a action he didn't like. He is very thin skinned. I think a MP should be more professional but I'm no longer one of his constituents so my opinion isn't much of a concern I suppose.
Another thing I want to add which isn't important to the OPs post is that I once interviewed Wayne for a podcast episode I was hosting. He was disinterested in what I was saying and a bit rude to me during the recording. A word I use to describe Wayne is cocky.