Atlantic Canadian Politics Thread

[lirette]

Describing Faytene as a "Christian Conservative" is pretty comical. A quick search would tell you the types of people she surrounds herself with. Take for example Josh Alexander who she's had on her show many times, who has disgusting bigoted views and continues to label members of the LGBTQ community as "sodomizers & "perverts". But yes sure some city councillors are doing land acknowledgements and we should somehow equate these things as equal.

Faytene is an extremist. It takes almost no digging to see this. She is the type of politician who would love nothing more than remove any seperation of church and state and that is the difference. She's platformed also on her show, Che Ahn, a prominent speaker at the stop the steal rally on January 6th and guy who believes god brought Donald Trump to rule as a Christian leader.

The problem is not so much with someone's beliefs but how they use and act on those beliefs. There is many Christians that vote liberal.

As a progressive person on the left id love a strong conservative party in NB who actually wants to engage in policy that will better the lives of New Brunswickers. What we have right now is a party which is looking more and more disinterested in governing, and far more interested in attacking the trans community.

[josh_cat_eyes]

What are some realistic policies people would like to see our provincial governments enact? Like what does your ideal party platform look like? The media likes to portray things as being left or right but I think we probably have more in common than we realize.

[adamuptownsj]

Kill the double tax.

[josh_cat_eyes]

Originally Posted by adamuptownsj

Kill the double tax.

What is being double taxed? Sorry if I should know this lol.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by josh_cat_eyes

What is being double taxed? Sorry if I should know this lol.

Non owner occupied rental buildings. It's the anti-landlord tax.

[Bishop2047]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Non owner occupied rental buildings. It's the anti-landlord tax.

And anti-cabin/hunting lodge tax.

I had a small rental unit for a few years and the tax was the reason I sold. It became an Air BnB. Exactly what we should not want.

[josh_cat_eyes]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Non owner occupied rental buildings. It's the anti-landlord tax.

That’s kind of what I thought but wasn’t sure. I’d like to see recall elections be allowed within certain criteria, the banning of glyphosate in the province, a substantial investment in building new schools, massive investment in rural roads (specifically along the 114 between Moncton & Riverside-Albert, route 16 between port Elgin and the confederation bridge, several sections of route 11, and subsidies for new doctors to practice in the province.

[Bishop2047]

Originally Posted by josh_cat_eyes

What are some realistic policies people would like to see our provincial governments enact? Like what does your ideal party platform look like? The media likes to portray things as being left or right but I think we probably have more in common than we realize.

Not sure how realistic it is, but any party that could create a more practical and realistic language based practices in NB would have my vote.

An Example. We have hundreds of paramedic positions that are not filled as they are reserved for "Bi-Lingual" persons. The issue is that we as a province lose many new graduates as they can not gain fulltime employment despite there being an enormous need. This damages both sides of the official languages debate. Communities such as St Quentin, or St Stephen are impossible to properly staff.

Every Province is struggling with staffing (especially healthcare) but language is an unnesssisary barrier in this day and age with the resources available.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Bishop2047

Not sure how realistic it is, but any party that could create a more practical and realistic language based practices in NB would have my vote.

An Example. We have hundreds of paramedic positions that are not filled as they are reserved for "Bi-Lingual" persons. The issue is that we as a province lose many new graduates as they can not gain fulltime employment despite there being an enormous need. This damages both sides of the official languages debate. Communities such as St Quentin, or St Stephen are impossible to properly staff.

Every Province is struggling with staffing (especially healthcare) but language is an unnesssisary barrier in this day and age with the resources available.

I would agree with this. No thinking person denies the necessity of bilingualism in a province like NB where there is a sizeable (30%) minority of primarily French speakers. This goes without question, but, the application of this policy can be up for debate. I think the requirements for bilingual personnel are different in Fredericton or Moncton than it is in Deer Island or Caraquet. As such, bilingual requirements should be applied thoughtfully, and on a regional or community basis, not on a ham-fisted approached requiring 100% compliance no matter where you live in the province. Regional or community based bilingualism is more humane, more flexible and more appropriate.

[sailor734]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

I would agree with this. No thinking person denies the necessity of bilingualism in a province like NB where there is a sizeable (30%) minority of primarily French speakers. This goes without question, but, the application of this policy can be up for debate. I think the requirements for bilingual personnel are different in Fredericton or Moncton than it is in Deer Island or Caraquet. As such, bilingual requirements should be applied thoughtfully, and on a regional or community basis, not on a ham-fisted approached requiring 100% compliance no matter where you live in the province. Regional or community based bilingualism is more humane, more flexible and more appropriate.

Far too logical a point of view to ever be implemented. SANB would scream bloody murder and run to the courts. The use of French is declining in NB and they are (understandably I guess from their POV) fighting it every possible way.

In certain areas full bilingualism or lack there of raises constitutional issues so that's a whole other problem.

In some ways I wonder if we all wouldn't be better off if the Anglo and French populations had just gradually merged and melded together after 1763 the way the Normans and Saxons did in the centuries following 1066.

[lirette]

Given the top issue for many voters is housing and its not going away anytime soon i would love to see an entire trades program setup where kids could join in say grade 11 of high school, and the program would carry through to some sort of public post secondary program where jobs building public housing would be guaranteed upon graduation. In year 2 or 3 of the program you would also be on the job with qualified experienced trades people helping with the home building.

This would go a long way to solve 2 major issues

Jobs for the next generation
Housing supply

I'm probably being completely unrealistic and we would need some support from the feds as well but I would love to see this. I recognize the cost would be high, but view it as a preventative cost compared to the high cost burden that homelessness brings today. These housing announcements we are seeing today are nice to see, but only a drop in the bucket to what is needed.

I would also like to see more done on the tourism front. I think the province has a huge opportunity with the Fundy Trail Parkway. If they could support a way to add some infrastructure so accomodations could be added to the trail that would be huge for visitors.

We also need more investments in education. Too many teachers are forking money out of their own pockets to add to their classrooms and support student.

In my view, these should be bi partisan issues. Of course someone will come in and tell me this is communism or something. I just believe that we should socialize more housing (but still support private industry) given the "war time" scenario where we are in now. Supporting tent cities is not the solution.

[Bishop2047]

Originally Posted by lirette

Given the top issue for many voters is housing and its not going away anytime soon i would love to see an entire trades program setup where kids could join in say grade 11 of high school, and the program would carry through to some sort of public post secondary program where jobs building public housing would be guaranteed upon graduation. In year 2 or 3 of the program you would also be on the job with qualified experienced trades people helping with the home building.

This would go a long way to solve 2 major issues

Jobs for the next generation
Housing supply

I'm probably being completely unrealistic and we would need some support from the feds as well but I would love to see this. I recognize the cost would be high, but view it as a preventative cost compared to the high cost burden that homelessness brings today. These housing announcements we are seeing today are nice to see, but only a drop in the bucket to what is needed.

I would also like to see more done on the tourism front. I think the province has a huge opportunity with the Fundy Trail Parkway. If they could support a way to add some infrastructure so accomodations could be added to the trail that would be huge for visitors.

We also need more investments in education. Too many teachers are forking money out of their own pockets to add to their classrooms and support student.

In my view, these should be bi partisan issues. Of course someone will come in and tell me this is communism or something. I just believe that we should socialize more housing (but still support private industry) given the "war time" scenario where we are in now. Supporting tent cities is not the solution.

All for your promotion of trades and housing initiatives. Many kids would jump at the opportunity to get into trades and out of traditional class learning. I do see significant pushback coming from the universities, but more and more people are getting wise to university not being the end all and be all.

Tourism in NB is a joke. Two years ago I bought a book with 100 plus waterfalls in NB. My family and I have been slowly checking them off but one thing I have noticed while doing this is.... NB has a ton of BEAUTIFUL STUFF and NO ONE knows about it (outside of a few locals).

I know we don't like people touching "our stuff" but as a province could be doing a much better job of marketing some very cool places, rather than tourist traps (looking at you magnet hill). I only moved here in 2018 but for Pete's sake Manitoba does a better job of marketing itself as a tourist Destination..... MANITOBA!

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Bishop2047

I know we don't like people touching "our stuff" but as a province could be doing a much better job of marketing some very cool places, rather than tourist traps (looking at you magnet hill). I only moved here in 2018 but for Pete's sake Manitoba does a better job of marketing itself as a tourist Destination..... MANITOBA!

agreed. The province should be marketing the dickens out of the entire Fundy coastal experience. From tip to tip, the Fundy coast has it all:

- Campobello Island and theRoosevelt International Park.
- Grand Manan and whale watching and birdwatching.
- St. Andrews by-the-Sea (multiple attractions including the Algonquin Hotel)
- Saint Stephen (Chocolate Museum and, soon-to-be oldest basketball court museum).
- Saint John (multiple attractions)
- Saint Martin's (sea caves, covered bridges)
- Fundy Trail
- Fundy National Park
- Alma (park service town, multiple restaurants and hotels)
- Cape Enrage
- Hopewelll Rocks
- Moncton (multiple attractions)
- Memramcook (orchards, vineyards)
- Sackville (waterfowl park, Coleville collection at the university art gallery)
- Fort Beausejour/Fort Cumberland National Historic Park (where two actual battles were fought. There were no battles fought at the Halifax Citadel).

All in the space of 300 km, with two cities of well over 100,000 people each to act as service centres. There is no other place like it in Atlantic Canada. Shit, let me be the manager of the marketing and promotions section of the Department of Tourism! I'd do a good job!

[adamuptownsj]

I was thinking on this in greater detail. A great scythe must swing. There's too many doing too little for too much.

Reduce legislature from 49 to like 33 members, pass resign-to-run laws, full municipalization (convert or annex the rural districts), ban pensions for elected officials and increase their pay by 100%, and ban elected officials from civil service jobs for 10 years following their last day in office.

Abolish dualism, abolish Cannabis NB and NB Liquor and privatize their functions, enforce bans on illegal weed stores, ban 'safe injection' sites.

Allow municipalities to increase taxes on vacant land in dense areas, provided the municipality lowers taxes on residential properties in a revenue neutral way.

Cut sales tax by 2%, reduce all income tax brackets by 2%, eliminate income tax on the first $35,000 earned, and reduce corporate tax by half.

Implement some kind of incentive/penalty system for public works contracts being finished on time and under budget, and implement annual audits on consultant usage, nonprofit funding, technology and other annual service fees, etc.

And most importantly, refuse to implement the federal beer tax, and work to actively reduce it.

Savings can also be realized by cutting the number of provincial departments massively. There's tons of duplication. Cap the number of cabinet ministers at 10 including the Premier. We do not need 18 departments.

1- Natural Resources
2- Combine Local Government, Regional Development Corporation, Intergovernmental Affairs
3- Finance and Treasury
4- Executive Council Office
5- Office of the Premier
6- Education
7- Health
8- Indigenous Affairs
9- DTI
10- Combine Social Development and Service New Brunswick

Abolish Tourism, Heritage, and Culture (delegating to regions-- clearly the province can't hack it).
Abolish Women's Equality (sounds bad out of context but what does this department do all day, exactly? Do bureaucrats actually achieve anything here other than generate paperwork?)
Abolish Early Childhood Development and Post-Secondary Education Training and Labour (combine with Education)
Abolish Agriculture, Aquaculture, and Fisheries, and Environment (combine with Natural Resources)
Abolish Energy Development (combine with DTI)

AFUERA!

[lirette]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

agreed. The province should be marketing the dickens out of the entire Fundy coastal experience. From tip to tip, the Fundy coast has it all:

- Campobello Island and theRoosevelt International Park.
- Grand Manan and whale watching and birdwatching.
- St. Andrews by-the-Sea (multiple attractions including the Algonquin Hotel)
- Saint Stephen (Chocolate Museum and, soon-to-be oldest basketball court museum).
- Saint John (multiple attractions)
- Saint Martin's (sea caves, covered bridges)
- Fundy Trail
- Fundy National Park
- Alma (park service town, multiple restaurants and hotels)
- Cape Enrage
- Hopewelll Rocks
- Moncton (multiple attractions)
- Memramcook (orchards, vineyards)
- Sackville (waterfowl park, Coleville collection at the university art gallery)
- Fort Beausejour/Fort Cumberland National Historic Park (where two actual battles were fought. There were no battles fought at the Halifax Citadel).

All in the space of 300 km, with two cities of well over 100,000 people each to act as service centres. There is no other place like it in Atlantic Canada. Shit, let me be the manager of the marketing and promotions section of the Department of Tourism! I'd do a good job!

The islands like a Campabello & Grand Manan are a huge miss promotion wise.

My wife are I are doing a combined Grand Manan / St Andrews vacation this summer and after reading abit more on my own about Grand Manan I can't wait to visit it for the first time. This should be the east coast version of Salt Spring Island, a place people all around Canada have heard of, and yet even New Brunswickers will visit many places in NS before even hearing about Grand Manan.

There are people in NB who don't even know that we have multiple places you can book whale watching tours from.

I've seen explorenb with booths setup at events like World Juniors, but they could be doing so much more. I'd like to see them doing more with social media influencers for one. Many big travel destinations will work with travel YouTubers to bring them to a destination and essentially they do the promotion for you. NB isn't remotely close to having any issues with over tourism like other destinations and should be taking advantage of being a hidden gem which is what everyone wants to find right now in travel.

[NB_ExistsToo]

Originally Posted by Bishop2047

Not sure how realistic it is, but any party that could create a more practical and realistic language based practices in NB would have my vote.

An Example. We have hundreds of paramedic positions that are not filled as they are reserved for "Bi-Lingual" persons. The issue is that we as a province lose many new graduates as they can not gain fulltime employment despite there being an enormous need. This damages both sides of the official languages debate. Communities such as St Quentin, or St Stephen are impossible to properly staff.

Every Province is struggling with staffing (especially healthcare) but language is an unnesssisary barrier in this day and age with the resources available.

I'm pretty sure if you removed the entire "bilingual" requires for paramedics we would still be woefully understaffed. Aren't they the lowest paid in the entire country? Also, if it were to be removed, you would still need some sort of system for paramedics, say in Saint Andrews to be able to communicate with a French speaking person. Yes, I assume there's French-only people in that region, as when I lived in Northern Ontario, I played soccer with Chinese individuals that weren't able to string 3 English words together after living there for 5 years.

I still consider the province's approach over the years laughable regarding the ability to implement bilingualism. If the province could put any meaningful attempt at that, it would likely alleviate nearly all the language concerns in the Province.

[Bishop2047]

Originally Posted by NB_ExistsToo

I'm pretty sure if you removed the entire "bilingual" requires for paramedics we would still be woefully understaffed. Aren't they the lowest paid in the entire country? Also, if it were to be removed, you would still need some sort of system for paramedics, say in Saint Andrews to be able to communicate with a French speaking person. Yes, I assume there's French-only people in that region, as when I lived in Northern Ontario, I played soccer with Chinese individuals that weren't able to string 3 English words together after living there for 5 years.

I still consider the province's approach over the years laughable regarding the ability to implement bilingualism. If the province could put any meaningful attempt at that, it would likely alleviate nearly all the language concerns in the Province.

Not the lowest paid any more, but retention is difficult in every province (and every health agency). The issue is that the language barrier is in addition to all the other stressors paramedics and any difficult to staff profession faces currently. A new unilingual graduate is likely to need 5-15 years of experience to get a fulltime job (varies by region). There are far fewer position posted for unilingual medics while the bilingual spots go unfilled, often for years (or have never been filled). Why wait that long when you can go elsewhere and gain the security, and consistency of fulltime employment.

I do know that there are language lines that are accessible to paramedics or service providers in the province. I have used these lines in my job. They also have 24 access to bilingual medical dispatchers via several means of communication. This is of course would never be enough for SANB as they will want a seat reserved indefinity for a francophone person that is itching to move to Chipman NB.

The sooner that we take a practical approach to language rights the better for all involved.

[sailor734]

Originally Posted by Bishop2047

Not the lowest paid any more, but retention is difficult in every province (and every health agency). The issue is that the language barrier is in addition to all the other stressors paramedics and any difficult to staff profession faces currently. A new unilingual graduate is likely to need 5-15 years of experience to get a fulltime job (varies by region). There are far fewer position posted for unilingual medics while the bilingual spots go unfilled, often for years (or have never been filled). Why wait that long when you can go elsewhere and gain the security, and consistency of fulltime employment.

I do know that there are language lines that are accessible to paramedics or service providers in the province. I have used these lines in my job. They also have 24 access to bilingual medical dispatchers via several means of communication. This is of course would never be enough for SANB as they will want a seat reserved indefinity for a francophone person that is itching to move to Chipman NB.

The sooner that we take a practical approach to language rights the better for all involved.

Once you have constitutional issues and the courts involved (SANB is extremely litigious) practicality is out the window.

[David_99]

Last week, Brunswick News obtained a copy of an email from longtime PC member Marc LeBlanc. Titled “Call it what it is – political travesty in N.B.

A ‘curveball’ involving Progressive Conservative Faytene Grasseschi and several long-time party members appears to have temporarily derailed the party’s attempt to nominate a candidate for the riding of Moncton Centre.

LeBlanc then quotes Zachary Luce as saying he is “part of a church associated to Faytene Grasseschi,” and that “she called last Wednesday encouraging to file my papers in Moncton Centre, she sent me all the documentation and a list to sign my papers as I only had 48 hours.“

Luce also expressed his support for Grasseschi, who he said “contacted me” about running to be the candidate in Moncton Centre. Asked how he and Grasseschi know each other, Luce said “we’ve done stuff together with the church and stuff.”

Grasseschi, meanwhile, distanced herself from Luce, and said he reached out to her, not the other way around.

Asked in an email whether they’re members of the same church, she replied: “No, Zachary Luce is not a member of my church, and I have never met him in person.”

“Now the serious question needs to be asked having a major impact on our party’s future: who gave Faytene Grasseschi the mandate to recruit and organize candidates in other ridings around New Brunswick?” LeBlanc asks in the email.

“We now have proof she’s positioned one of her church followers in a key Moncton riding, God help us all if this gets out to media!

tj.news

[adamuptownsj]

Mike Holland to retire at end of term. More interestingly, Arlene Dunn is resigning. From the CBC article it sounds planned- Higgs has press availability planned on the subject, and she sounds like she's announcing a federal run.

No idea who they get to run for Harbour.