Canada’s most dangerous cities: sexual assault

By macleans.ca - Thursday, December 15, 2011 at 5:55 AM - 0 Comments

Saint John, New Brunswick

There is some progress on this front. Last year, about 65 Canadians out of every 100,000 suffered a sexual assault—down from more than 78 victims per 100,000 in 2000. Of course, these are police-reported incidents, and few doubt this remains a much under-reported crime. Based on what was reported to police in 2010, Saint John, N.B., tops the list. North of the 60th parallel, however, the rates of sexual assault are particularly horrific. In the Yukon, one person in every 515 was sexually assaulted last year. In Nunavut, there was one for every 164 people.

Worst cities (% higher than national average)

1. Saint John, N.B. (132%)

2. Belleville, Ont. (122%)

3. Fredericton (88%)

4. Prince George, B.C. (84%)

5. Shawinigan Region, Que. (65%)

Best cities (% lower than national average)

1. Caledon, Ont. (72%)

2. West Vancouver (69%)

3. Vaudreuil-Soulanges Region, Que. (65%)

4. North Vancouver (64%)

5. Richmond, B.C. (59%)

Buddy, can you spare a deer?

By Richard Warnica - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 10:10 AM - 0 Comments

Sussex, N.B.’s Mike and Caroline Trueman love to shoot deer. They usually bag a pair every season. But a few years ago, with their five kids grown and out of the home, the avid hunters had a problem: what were they supposed to do with all that meat?

Their answer: give it to the needy. In 2008, the Truemans called local food banks and soup kitchens to ask, “Can you take our deer?” The meat, they figured, would be a good change from the mac and cheese that fills most food hampers. But they couldn’t find any takers. “Everybody kept saying, nope, you can’t do that in Canada. It’s not available. It’s not legal,” Caroline Trueman says.

But the Truemans didn’t give up. They went to Fredericton, hired a lawyer, and in 2009 had their hunted-meat-for-the-hungry scheme declared legal. That year, the Truemans launched Farmers and Hunters Feeding the Hungry Canada, an offshoot of an American organization. In the 2010 season alone, Caroline says, the group fed nutritious and, depending on your tastes, delicious venison to 1,600 needy New Brunswickers. Now the Truemans are hoping to expand. Their website already lists volunteer coordinators in B.C., Ontario and Quebec. They’re hoping more come on board soon.

The program works like this: the organization provides a list of participating, provincially licensed butchers. All the hunters have to do is hunt, then drop the meat off. (“Do what you love to do,” Caroline says.) The organization pays for cleaning and butchering costs with donations.

Since local media first reported on the program, Caroline has been swamped with offers and advice on how to expand the operation. But she says it’s all a bit beyond her. “I don’t know how to do a marketing plan,” she says. “All I know how to do is feed the hungry and hunt.”

The Commons: A salute to cognitive dissonance

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 3, 2011 at 5:52 PM - 0 Comments

The Scene. Shortly before the start of Question Period this afternoon, Conservative backbencher Patrick Brown rose to repeat his side’s line that the NDP is too “disunited” to govern. A moment later, Conservative backbencher Greg Rickford rose to lament that the NDP, in punishing two MPs who defied the party’s decision to whip a vote on the gun registry, was also too committed to enforcing unity.

Presumably this was Mr. Rickford’s way of protesting his own government’s decision to whip this week’s vote on asbestos exports. Hopefully his caucus leadership won’t too severely punish him for so bravely asserting the independence of individual MPs.

Immediately thereafter, the Speaker then called for oral questions and the official opposition sent up Joe Comartin, Mr. Comartin having apparently discovered an example of irony that he was eager to share with everyone. Continue…

The town without a government

By Martin Patriquin - Monday, October 31, 2011 at 8:40 AM - 0 Comments

Normally, the village of St. Martins, on New Brunswick’s Fundy coast, doesn’t lack for much. The lovely little fishing burg 40 km from Saint John boasts an abundance of lobster, a front-row view of the world’s largest tides, and enough distance between it and Saint John to keep things quiet and sublime. If only it had a functioning government.

In April, the town lost councillor Mike Gillchrist, 54, to cancer; its equally popular mayor Jim Huttges, 68, died in August after a triple bypass, meaning the town council hasn’t been able to make quorum for the past three months. City hall is now in a bind: according to provincial law, it can’t hold by-elections between now and May 2012, when province-wide elections are held. As a result, St. Martins has fallen into trusteeship, with a provincial government-appointed clerk overseeing town functions in the interim.

“It’s been a terrible year, to say the least,” says village clerk and treasurer Mysti Patterson. “Because our community is so small, the whole town has been affected.”

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Murder and a maritime dynasty

By Nicholas Köhler - Thursday, July 28, 2011 at 4:55 PM - 7 Comments

Canadian Yachting Association

They say that when Richard Henry Oland’s secretary noticed something was amiss on the morning of July 7, a Thursday, she ran downstairs to the printing business operated by the building’s landlord, an apparently squeamish man who in turn sent up one of his employees to look into the matter. What was discovered, at 52 Canterbury Street, between the major thoroughfares of Princess and King streets—a fairy-tale block of 19th-century brick buildings in the gentrifying core of historic Saint John, N.B.—has likely changed the city forever.

Oland, the 69-year-old president of the Far End Corp. investment firm, had been messily dispatched at his desk—bludgeoned with the blunt end of an axe, according to local rumour and a Toronto Star report that the Saint John police force refuses to confirm. A man who in photographs is seldom without a face-cracking grin, Oland had last been seen at six o’clock the previous evening.

This week, a professional cleaner specializing in mopping up after suicides, homicides and unattended deaths spent days vigorously scouring the premises, the hose of a high-powered air-cleaning device designed to clear the stench of death hovering out from the covered window.

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Delivery men in blue

By Alex Ballingall - Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 8:20 AM - 0 Comments

When a cop pulls up behind you on the side of the road, what do you typically expect to happen? At best, a gentle warning; at worst, some time in the slammer. In Fredericton, it appears you may be treated to a free pizza courtesy of the local Pizza Hut—if you’re following the rules.

The Fredericton Police Force launched an initiative last week giving free pizzas to drivers who choose to pull over when fiddling with their cellphones. Police take their licence plate numbers so they can mail drivers coupons for a free, medium, three-topping pizza from Pizza Hut. Drivers’ names will also be entered in a draw for a Bluetooth headset.

“Our officers are really excited about it,” Const. Rick Mooney of the Fredericton Police Force tells Maclean’s. “I think it will create dialogue around the issue.” The issue is distracted driving, which Mooney blames for 80 per cent of vehicle collisions. On June 6, New Brunswick enacted a new law stipulating a fine of $172.50 for those caught texting and using their phones without headsets while driving. Ever since, Mooney says, police have noticed a number of people pulling to the side of the road to use their phones. The free pizzas, he says, are meant to reward the public and encourage more discussion about distracted driving. “Why not try something different and actually put a thank you out there and tell people we appreciate that?” Mooney says. “Hopefully we’ll see some good results.”

And if they do, what’s next—candy canes for sober drivers at Christmas?

Emptying the beer fridge

By Cigdem Iltan - Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 2:00 PM - 1 Comment

Tara Brautigam/CP

It’s last call for drinkers of Canada’s only government-brand beer. The New Brunswick liquor board, which created Selection Lager and Selection Light in March 2009 in response to lagging domestic beer sales and cross-border competition, has stopped production of the private-label beers. Selection Light wasn’t meeting the minimum sales cut-off of 100,000 litres per year, says board spokeswoman Nora Lacey. Selection Lager met the sales cut-off, but because the beers were marketed together, the board decided to stop sales of both brews to make space in its cold rooms for different products. “It’s all peformance based; we have to look at our own brands in the same light and take the appropriate action,” says Lacey.

At $19.99 for 12 cans, Selection was a clear choice for New Brunswick’s wallet-conscious beer drinkers. But reviewers on ratebeer.com seemed to agree that when it came to taste, drinkers got what they paid for: Selection Lager scored an average rating of 1.83/5, with one reviewer likening it to “water from a cheap plastic garden hose that’s been lying in the sun all afternoon.” Selection Light fared similarly, mustering up an average of 1.64/5 and comments that are far from ringing endorsements: “Pours a clear, pale, sickly urine yellow . . . probably the worst looking beer I’ve seen but merely pathetic otherwise.”

Lacey maintains that while Selection’s sales fizzled, both beers’ first year doubled expectations, with each boasting a one per cent market share. She turns to a recent overall decline in domestic beer sales across Canada as an explanation for its demise, rather than the particular taste of Selection’s suds.

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Betting big on shale gas

By Tom Henheffer - Tuesday, March 29, 2011 at 11:37 AM - 9 Comments

The Quebec government’s environmental worries have ground to a halt the drills driving shale gas development. But in neighbouring New Brunswick, the lucrative industry is booming with full provincial support.

Earlier this month, Quebec’s environment watchdog published a report recommending a shut-down of shale gas wells in the province until more research into their ecological impact can be conducted. Pierre Arcand, the province’s environment minister, announced a moratorium within minutes of the release. But Bruce Northrup, Arcand’s counterpart in New Brunswick, quickly followed the news by telling reporters that his government would not be enacting any similar restrictions. “We’ve been very clear since day one,” he said. “We’re not putting a moratorium on.”

This stance has angered environmental groups, such as the Conservation Council of New Brunswick, which have been quick to note that drilling in the United States has led to chemical spills and natural gas in drinking water. They say New Brunswick’s industry—which has seen $374-million worth of investment since the province’s natural gas reserves were discovered in 2000, and which could one day produce $225 million in annual royalties—must be halted to give the government time to beef up its regulations.

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Now that's a slap on the wrist

By macleans.ca - Thursday, July 29, 2010 at 5:00 PM - 0 Comments

Getty Images

New Brunswick: After demanding cash at a convenience store, two Saint John teens were charged: a 19-year-old with robbery and a 16-year-old with breach of probation. After his glasses were scratched with a knife during the incident, the storekeeper grabbed a piece of shelving and hit the 19-year-old on the wrist.

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Where all the news is good news

By Nicholas Köhler - Thursday, July 29, 2010 at 2:40 PM - 0 Comments

Getty Images

Ask a newsagent in Moncton, N.B., about that new local newspaper—ZoomNB, a free monthly dedicated to reporting good news only—and you may hear a funny story: someone dropped a stack of the papers off, then someone entirely different came and picked them all up, and no one’s seen it since. Daniel Mlodecki, ZoomNB’s publisher, agrees he’s heard tell of it—that someone’s conducting some sort of black-plumbing operation against him—but dismisses the yarn as “a little rumour.”

Whatever the case, running a newspaper in New Brunswick is hard work: Brunswick News, owned by the province’s Irving family, holds all its English dailies and most of the weeklies, a situation that prompted a Senate inquiry into media concentration there. Two years ago, the publisher of the Carleton Free Press, a Woodstock, N.B., indie, filed a Competition Bureau complaint accusing Brunswick News of selling ads at predatory prices; the bureau didn’t pursue it and the Free Press closed months later.

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'Destructive type of behaviour'

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, June 17, 2010 at 9:05 AM - 5 Comments

While Keith Ashfield dismisses concerns, Greg Thompson stands by his version of events and, in an interview with the CBC, explains how he brought his concerns to the attention of the Prime Minister’s Office. Meanwhile, the Premier of New Brunswick is displeased.

Summer Getaways: New Brunswick

By Cameron Ainsworth-Vincze - Friday, June 11, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 2 Comments

Take a chairlift up Sugarloaf Mountain, and cycle down past scenic vistas (Aaron McKenzie Fraser)

The Fundy Trail Parkway
Drive the paved parkway that hugs the coastal cliffs, lace up your hiking boots, or hop on your mountain bike and explore the trails—it’s the ultimate Bay of Fundy eco-adventure. The trails, carved out of the Fundy escarpment in one of the last remaining coastal wilderness areas between Florida and Labrador, connect to paths and stairways that lead to pristine beaches and tumbling waterfalls. Precambrian rocks and 250-m cliffs tower at the water’s edge.

Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival (Sept. 14-19)
To commemorate the 20th anniversary of Fredericton’s largest annual event, more than 350 musicians will perform on 23 stages in four downtown city blocks. Headliners include Maria Muldaur, Kurt Elling, Jane Bunnett’s African-Cuban Blues Project, Roomful of Blues, Champion & His G-Strings, Elliott Brood, John Hiatt and Big Sugar. Festival organizers also created the Harvest 20th Anniversary Jazz Orchestra, a collective featuring some of the finest jazz musicians to come out of New Brunswick in the past two decades.

Club Wind & Kite
Lameque Island, in the northeastern part of the Acadian Peninsula, is considered one of Canada’s best places for kiteboarding. Whether you are an expert in the sport, or want to try it out for the first time, the constant winds and shallow water lagoons combine with the warm waters of the Baie des Chaleurs to create a perfect kiteboarding experience. Certified by the International Kiteboarding Organization, Club Wind & Kite won the 2008 provincial award for Excellence and Innovation in Tourism Product Development. Packages range from $89 for a one-hour lesson to $959 for a week’s stay, which includes seafront accommodation.

Bike park at Sugarloaf Provincial Park
Ride the chairlift to the top of Sugarloaf Mountain, then take off down the mountain, guided by an experienced cyclist, past wildlife and scenic vistas. You can bring your own bike and helmet, or rent when you arrive. Either way, you are guaranteed to leave with a memorable experience and a few tips for improving your skill as a downhill rider.

To see what Julie Doiron picks as her favourite spots, go to Where famous Canucks go to play

For more information on events and travel in New Brunswick, see www.tourismnewbrunswick.ca

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Is that a bomb in your backpack?

By Michael Friscolanti - Thursday, June 3, 2010 at 11:40 AM - 1 Comment

Getty Images

The phrase “improvised explosive device” doesn’t appear anywhere in the Criminal Code, and when most Canadians hear the infamous acronym IED they think of Kandahar—not the Maritimes. But when a 14-year-old New Brunswick boy walked into his high school with a spice bottle full of “the blue stuff from the Dollar Store that you throw on a fire,” that’s what the authorities dubbed his pocket-sized concoction: an improvised explosive device.

There was only one problem. His IED was a dud. No matter how hard the cops tried, the teenager’s YouTube-inspired brew of lighter fluid, green duct tape and sparkler parts just wouldn’t blow up. There was a “very intense fire,” according to one officer who tested the mixture—but no explosion.

Continue…

The river continues to divide them

By Tom Henheffer - Thursday, April 29, 2010 at 3:40 PM - 10 Comments

Moncton Times & Transcript/ CP

The causeway gates holding back the Petitcodiac River from Coverdale to Moncton, N.B., opened last week, allowing the waters to flow freely for the first time since the land bridge was constructed in 1968. About 500 people gathered to watch, and while many cheered, dozens were left fuming. “It will become a muddy tidal river that won’t be used for recreation,” says Kevin Campbell, a member of the Lake Petitcodiac Preservation Association.

The causeway was originally built to control flooding and link Moncton and Riverview, N.B. It resulted in the creation of a large head pond, around which a community sprung up. But, says Tim Van Hinte, a spokesperson for Petitcodiac Riverkeeper, “the river was dying because of the causeway.” The water forced upstream twice a day by the Bay of Fundy’s powerful tides was interrupted, depositing tonnes of silt along the shore, choking what was originally a mile-wide river to 100 m. It interrupted migration and dramatically reduced the populations of Atlantic salmon, shad and seven other kinds of fish.

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Watch your speed, it’s an emergency

By Rachel Mendleson - Thursday, April 1, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 1 Comment

Photograph by Istock

When responding to medical emergencies, paramedics say that exceeding the speed limit is just part of the job. But how fast is too fast? Citing safety concerns, Island EMS, the company that operates ambulances on Prince Edward Island, has tightened its cap on speeds—despite the fervent protestations of the paramedics union. “We’re not talking about these people wanting to be cowboys,” says union spokesman Bill McKinnon. “We’re talking about professionals who have always had discretion and used it wisely.”

The dispute began last November, when Island EMS introduced a policy further limiting speeds. Relaxed slightly in February, it now prohibits ambulances from going more than 10 km/h over the speed limit in town, and more than 20 km/h over it on highways. According to Island EMS general manager Craig Pierre, speeding is a safety hazard which, on narrow P.E.I. roads, doesn’t necessarily result in an earlier arrival. “When you’re travelling fast you have to brake harder,” he says. “Slower, more controlled driving actually gets you there in the same time.”

McKinnon, who claims the cap is more restrictive than in other Canadian jurisdictions, says the union was unable to find a single accident in P.E.I. involving an ambulance in emergency mode directly related to speed. As well, he cites an incident in New Brunswick when an elderly patient died after paramedics, prohibited from exceeded a speed cap, didn’t arrive in time. “We’re really concerned that a similar incident will occur here,” he says. (Ambulance New Brunswick, a subsidiary of the company that owns Island EMS, has since reviewed its policy and relaxed the caps.)

Unable to reach a compromise, the parties have called for government intervention. A communications officer for P.E.I. Health Minister Carolyn Bertram says that, for now, she is staying out of the conflict. But after discussing the issue with Island EMS earlier this month, Bertram told the Charlottetown Guardian, “From what I see, [the Island EMS policy] is ensuring patient safety.”

America’s new power broker?

By Martin Patriquin - Wednesday, February 3, 2010 at 9:50 AM - 28 Comments

Though it might have looked decent enough on paper, Hydro-Québec’s original pitch to buy New Brunswick’s power corporation fell victim to a uniquely Canadian brand of realpolitik rife with governmental hand-wringing, chest-thumping New Brunswick nationalism, and a soupçon of anti-French sentiment. Still, the new deal, announced last week, which would see Hydro-Québec take over New Brunswick’s power generating plants (but not its transmission lines), is hardly a setback for Quebec’s electricity giant. Even under the new agreement, Hydro-Québec has further entrenched itself in Atlantic Canada.

Yet for all the noisy clamour, New Brunswick is only part of Hydro-Québec’s master plan to become a literal power broker for much of Eastern Canada and, more importantly, the Eastern and Midwestern United States. Already, Hydro-Québec powers a sizable portion of New England and New York state. In the next four years, the corporation plans to move further into the American Midwest, a market of over 66 million people where electricity rates are nearly triple those of Quebec’s. The plan is raising concern in the U.S., but promises a huge windfall for the ambitious corporation; buying up NB Power’s generating capacity only gives it more power to throw around.

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Winter Travel '09: New Brunswick

By Susan Mohammad - Monday, November 16, 2009 at 5:00 PM - 0 Comments

Credit: Brian Atkinson

WORLD POND HOCKEY CHAMPIONSHIP/PLASTER ROCK (Feb. 11 to 14)
Since the small village first hosted the event in 2002, the championship has grown from 40 teams to 120, representing 15 countries. (The defending champs are the Sadler’s Wheat Kings from Fredericton.) Teams play four on four, without goalies—the goal is just 25 cm high. This year, a women’s division is being added for the first time in the tourney’s history. But the grand prize is unchanged: a trophy that looks a lot like the Stanley Cup, except for the fact it’s made out of wood.

WINTERFEST NEW BRUNSWICK/FREDERICTON (Feb. 5 to 21)
Inspired by one family’s visit to Winterlude in the nation’s capital, Winterfest NB was founded in 2002 and boasts seven-metre-tall ice slides and a 16-hectare ice labyrinth with two-metre-tall walls. Every year, thousands of tourists enjoy the artistry of the ice and snow sculptures and test their off-season golf skills by teeing one up at one of the three polar bear golf holes.

RUSTIC WINTER SHELTER/KOUCHIBOUGUAC NATIONAL PARK (Dec. 15 to March 31)
After trekking—by cross-country ski or snowshoe—the 10 km to the campsite, you’ll appreciate the simple—indoor—accommodation (for safety, a minimum of three people must stay at the remote shelter at a time). This outdoor adventure is not for high-maintenance types. Participants will have to carry everything they need during their stay. The park, which is located about 100 km north of Moncton, provides a stove, firewood, picnic tables, six sleeping platforms and a toilet—and, of course, plenty of trails for cross-country skiing, snowshoeing and tobogganing.

NEW BRUNSWICK’S NORTHERN SNOWMOBILE ODYSSEY (December to March)
Every year, up to 400 cm of the white stuff flies in New Brunswick, the most snow in any of the three Maritime provinces. That’s why so many jump on a “sled” and head out on this epic winter journey, which covers 1,000 km of trails and links Miramichi, Bathurst, Campbellton and Edmundston. Be sure to fit in some time to unwind at one of the bed and breakfasts or hotels along the way.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: www.tourismnewbrunswick.ca

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Take my power utility, please

By Andrew Coyne - Monday, November 9, 2009 at 11:27 AM - 22 Comments

In the wake of Hydro-Québec’s astonishing $4.8-billion deal to take over New Brunswick’s electric power utility, I have just one question: would Hydro-Québec please take over Ontario’s next? As long as elephantine, debt-ridden provincial power utilities are taking over other elephantine, debt-ridden provincial power utilities, why should New Brunswick have all the fun? If the taxpayers of Quebec are generous enough to underwrite another province’s expensive energy policy mistakes alongside their own, then I say Ontario should be next in line.

NB Power got itself into trouble for much the same reason Ontario Hydro did, before its breakup a decade ago, as indeed did Hydro-Québec: it overexpanded, over-invested in capital plant, overpaid its over-manned workforce, and financed it all by over-borrowing—and undercharging consumers, effectively subsidizing demand to justify its own expansion. The combination of political ownership and monopoly control of the market proved all too prone to abuse, as it always does, the scale of the folly obscured by the usual cowboy accounting. It is, in short, a costly, politicized mess: $4.8 billion in debt, and groaning under the weight of its very own rundown, over-budget, behind-schedule nuclear fiasco, the Point Lepreau plant, beside which the Darlington disaster looks almost economic. Continue…

H1N1 puts HPV vaccine on the shelf

By Kate Lunau - Monday, October 26, 2009 at 11:18 AM - 1 Comment

As New Brunswick prepares to inoculate residents against swine flu, another public health program is falling by the wayside. Hundreds of health care workers, from nursing students to retirees, are being recruited to administer the H1N1 vaccine—meaning the HPV vaccine must be put on hold. This year, about 2,500 Grade 7 girls will not receive a shot to protect them from the human papilloma virus, which can cause genital warts and cervical cancer.

According to the “Canadian Cancer Statistics” report, about seven Canadians per 100,000 were diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2005, the most recent year for which data is available. Thanks to the HPV vaccine, “it’s the first genital cancer that’s preventable,” says Dr. André Lalonde, executive vice-president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada. As such, he notes, “it’s a major breakthrough in health.” Continue…

Statistics if necessary, but not necessarily statistics

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, July 23, 2009 at 3:17 PM - 12 Comments

Rob Moore considers the slightly rising crime rate in New Brunswick.

“The data shows we still have a lot of room for improvement and, even more importantly, our justice system can do better.”

Garry Arthur Brooks 1945-2009

By Nicholas Köhler - Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 2:20 PM - 3 Comments

Garry Arthur Brooks was born in Sussex, N.B., a dairy town northeast of Saint John, on April 17, 1945, to Emery, a serviceman, and Ruby, a homemaker. A middle child, he enjoyed helping others even as a boy: he shovelled his teacher’s walkway after blizzards and, when neighbours holidayed, cared for their milk cows. But when Emery’s job with the Dominion Stores supermarket chain brought the family to Saint John, 12-year-old Garry tired of school, preferring to count the Irving Oil trucks as they lurched past his classroom window and to play hockey with friends (Garry manned the goal). Among the girls who watched their games and dated the players—Garry, ever the helper, taught many of them to drive—was Heather Bingham, daughter of the local grocer. “He’s always been awfully really nice to people,” she says. “That stuck out.”

At 17—indeed, as soon as he could, so much did he dislike school—he enlisted, becoming an infantryman in the Black Watch Royal Highland Regiment. Army life took him to CFB Gagetown, then to Germany. On his return, he asked Heather out. Seeing a different suitor at the time, she declined, but Garry was persistent. She discovered his preferred pastime only after marriage: “He loved to work,” she says. On off days he took jobs mowing lawns, laying sod and—his real passion beyond the American Hockey League—working machines. In 1967, he was travelling with the Canadian Forces Centennial Tattoo when Heather bore a son, Darren. Yet his military service was not all pageantry: there were peacekeeping tours in Cyprus and, in 1970, time in Montreal during the FLQ crisis. “He was,” says Heather, “a trained killer.” Continue…

Oh, Canada

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, June 30, 2009 at 12:51 PM - 47 Comments

Canadian Press looks back on the outrage concerning that principal who didn’t play the national anthem each morning.

Conservative MPs on the floor of the House of Commons, bloggers and media pundits provoked a raging national debate this spring over the decision by a single school in rural New Brunswick to curtail the morning ritual of O Canada. The furor drove Erik Millett, principal of tiny Belleisle Elementary, from his job and resulted in death threats against him. New Brunswick subsequently made it mandatory to sing O Canada daily in the province’s schools, starting this autumn. No fewer than five federal Tory New Brunswick MPs – including two cabinet members – publicly pounced on the anthem issue. No other party’s MPs in Parliament intervened.

Contrast that with a national study this month by the Dominion Institute that found the teaching of Canadian history is woefully inadequate in high schools from coast to coast … Alberta and Saskatchewan, home to 40 federal Conservative MPs, both received Fs from the institute for failing to require a single history course to graduate.

Yet not one Tory MP raised the issue in Parliament. Their silence was doubly perplexing because the absence of history education dovetails with a push by Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney to improve what he calls “civic literacy” among Canadians – essentially the understanding of our national history and symbols.

And you’ll never guess what Mr. Millett’s teaching now.

It’s back: our oldest canoe comes home

By Tom Henheffer - Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 4:40 PM - 1 Comment

The world’s oldest canoe is coming back to New Brunswick. But someone forgot to tell the Maliseet, the First Nations people who constructed it.

Built about 180 years ago on a riverbank in Fredericton, the Grandfather Akwiten canoe has had an amazing journey. It was taken to Ireland in 1825 by a British officer—possibly stolen, possibly a gift. It wound up at the National University of Ireland in 1850 and hung from a roof there until 2001. Falling apart and full of pigeons, its history was forgotten and it was almost thrown out.

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Summer Travel '09: New Brunswick

By Brian Banks - Thursday, June 11, 2009 at 8:20 AM - 0 Comments

World Acadian Congress/Acadian Peninsula (Aug. 7-23) The World Acadian Congress is a gathering of far-flung Acadians that takes place once every five years. This summer, it’s being held on New Brunswick’s Acadian Peninsula, in the northeast corner of the province. Sixty host communities will welcome thousands of guests and stage a large program of excursions, games, concerts and nights of storytelling. The towns of Caraquet and Shippagan are local hubs. Among notable permanent historical attractions, there is Caraquet’s Village Historique Acadien—a full-scale, fully staffed, working replica of a traditional Acadian community. Can’t go in August? The first nine days of July, Shippagan hosts its Fisheries and Aquaculture Festival.

St. Andrews by-the-Sea Just a stone’s throw from the Maine border, on Passamaquoddy Bay, overlooking the Fundy Isles and the Bay of Fundy, is St. Andrews by-the-Sea. There are few prettier seaside resort towns anywhere. Its appearance and character reflect two defining influences: the United Empire Loyalists who settled here after the American Revolution, as well as its subsequent development by prominent Canadian families in the late 19th century. That historic charm will be on full display this summer as two major landmarks celebrate anniversaries—the famous Tudor-style Fairmont Algonquin hotel in the centre of the old Loyalist town turns 120, while Kingsbrae Horticultural Garden, a multi-award-winning, 27-acre public garden created on the grounds of several old estates overlooking the town, marks its 10th birthday.

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