Volunteers Needed For St. Andrews Playground Construction And Demolition

Just like 20 years ago  -- a local playground's re-construction will be done by the hands of volunteers.

The St. Andrews Community Playground Committee asking the public to help with the demolition and build preparation before construction starts next week.

Volunteers are needed between 5:30pm to dusk on weekdays, and 9am-5pm on the weekend.

Construction on the playground will also be done by volunteers from next Wednesday, September 25th, to Sunday, Sept 29th.
To sign up as a volunteer for the project, and for details, click here.

Gallant Says It's Not A Real Shuffle

The Provincial Liberal Leader says it's also the same people around the table..it's not a real shuffle.
 
Brian Gallant tells Tide News this is an old political tactic when things are not going well politically.

He says it's only changing the roles for a few ministers adding it's like they are playing musical chairs with an extra seat.

Gallant says making Ted Flemming the Attorney General is only because of Marie-Claude Blais's move to education meaning they needed a lawyer in that post.

Cardy Calls Cabinet Shuffle "Rearranging Deck Chairs"

Provincial NDP Leader Dominic Cardy is predictably unimpressed with Premier David Alward's major cabinet shuffle unveiled today.

He tells Tide News he's a bit confused by the reappointment of former Education Minister Jody Carr to Post-secondary Education, Training and Labour since that's a ministry that needs stronger leadership.
 
Carr says it amounts to little more than putting individuals in potions with which they're not familiar--and that's unlikely to spark any major change in direction.

Environmentalist Wonders If Canaport Could Have Done More

The Canaport Community Environmental Liaison Committee is fit to be tied because the first it heard about the huge bird kill late last week was on the news. Thousands of birds died after apparently flying into the flaring at the L-N-G plant.

 A member of that committee, David Thompson tells Tide News if other birds had died the same way before last week, he wants to know if anything was done previously.

He wonders if they turned down the lights, tried to turn down the stack flare or put on sirens or made other noise to deter the birds away.

Thompson also speculates many more birds may have died than the estimated total of 75 hundred if they fell into the Bay or nearby woods.

NB Breast Cancer Deaths Are Declining

Breast cancer deaths in the province have been going down since 1996 according to the first report on breast cancer from the New Brunswick Cancer Network.

The number of breast cancer deaths has declined by 12 per cent with the number of mammograms and proportion of women screened rising dramatically. 

Breast cancer is still the second leading cause of cancer deaths among women in the province. 110 women have died so far this year.

Man Charged With Bestiality

A 29-year-old man has been arrested in relation to incidents of bestiality in the Moncton area.

A search warrant carried out on his home on September 18. Images and other items were seized.

He will appear in court on October 4 2013, to answer to charges of bestiality and corrupting morals. All the incidents, involving dogs, are said to have occurred from January to September 2013.

Big Changes In The Alward Cabinet

Some changes in the Alward cabinet just 12 months before the next provincial vote.

Rothesay MLA Ted Flemming remains Health Minister and also becomes Attorney General.

Jody Carr is no longer Education minister but takes over in related portfolio...Post-Secondary Education, Training and Labour.

Marie-Claude Blais is the new minister for Education and Early Childhood Development.

Troy Lifford is the new minister of Justice and Robert Trevors moves out of Public Safety into Human Resources.

Bruce Northrup takes over Public Safety and Danny Soucy takes up his former role in Environment and Local Government.

Claude Williams remains in Transportation and Trevor Holder in Tourism, Heritage and Culture.

For more on the cabinet shuffle, click here

Gas Prices Down Again Especially Self Serve Regular

You won't have to pay as much for gas if you have to fill up after the weekly setting. 

The price of self serve regular taking a big dip by over 4 cents a litre to $1.26.5 around town. 

Diesel is also a bit less expensive at $1.37.6 a litre. 

The maximum price for heating oil is $1.18.6 which is down by a couple of cents a litre but propane has increased with the maximum price listed at $1.06.9 a litre.

RCMP Seeking Public Assistance

Uptown Saint John Reacts To Paramount Demolition

"Disappointing"......That's the reaction of the President of Uptown Saint John to the start of demolition at the old Paramount Theatre in King Square. 

Matt Alexander, though, is far from downcast about what the future holds.

Uptown Saint John made a concerted effort to get enough public and financial support to see the theatre transformed to another use but failed.

Alexander is hopeful the development of the Coast Guard site by Market Square will act as a catalyst to spur further development in the uptown. He says there's a lot of energy in that part of the city these days.

Thousands Of Dead Birds At Canaport LNG

Workers at Canaport LNG were met with a grim scene over the weekend as 7,500 birds--some of them possibly listed as endangered--were found dead near the gas plant.

 Research head of zoology at the New Brunswick Museum Donald McAlpine tells Tide News the birds were attracted to the large flame at the plant in the foggy weather, very much like moths are attracted to flames.

Canaport has been working to reduce flaring, and McAlpine called the event extremely unusual. He did say, however, that could have been predicted with the large amounts of birds migrating at this time of year and also the low cloud ceiling. 

The flares are a way to burn off excess gas.

Pension Coalition Making Stop In St. Stephen

Retirees came out in droves yesterday to hear about the shared risk pension plan the Alward government is proposing to replace a defined benefits model. Hundreds showing up to the New Brunswick Pension Coalition's information meeting at the qplex in Quispamsis.

Spokesperson Clifford Kennedy says the polls filled out at the meeting will be used to help the coalition figure out what they should do next--whether they go legal, or attempt to get into a discussion process with government.

Liberal Leader Brian Gallant addressed the crowd, showing his support for the Pension Coalition. Gallant suggesting a judicial review to find out if switching to that model from a defined benefits model is legal.

Quispamsis was the first stop on a tour of the region. St. Stephen being the second. Kennedy says the polls filled out at the meeting will be used to help the coalition figure out what they should do next.

Former Saint John mayor and teacher Ivan Court getting up and telling the room it's time to get rid of this government.

Around 100 pensioners came to the meeting at the Royal Canadian Legion in St. Stephen.

Some Changes As Hunters Gear Up For Moose Season

Moose season runs from next Thursday until Saturday--and with over 4600 licenses being given out this year, the Department of Natural Resources has set up a number of new registration stations so that hunters can get their moose registered quickly.

The new private moose registration stations are in Neguac, Saint-Paul, Tay Creek, Saint- Léonard, Edmundston, and nearby McAdam. Moose can also be registered at 17 department offices throughout the province. Time is of the essence to get moose to a butcher shop after they are shot for safety reasons and it's hoped the new stations will cut the wait time. 


A change in the moose hunting rules is also making it possible for a previously chosen hunter to be issued a moose license in the event of the death of the primary license holder before  moose season. The change will come into effect in time for this fall's hunt.

Police Release Images From Child Abuse Video To Track Down Suspect

The New Brunswick RCMP's Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) Unit are turning to social media to track down a man wanted in an investigation into a sexual assault against a child and the production of child pornography.

The unit has released picture captured from a video in which a man is abusing a girl approximately 3 years old. The video first appeared on the Internet in 2005, and since then police agencies across North America have attempted to identify the man and victim. The video is thought to have been made somewhere in North America and  the girl is likely between 10 and 12 years of age today. 

 The man is described as Caucasian, approximately 180 to 200 pounds, with brown hair. He has a distinctive dark circular mark on his right forearm and a ring on his left hand.

The video came to the attention of the New Brunswick RCMP during an unrelated investigation.

Pension Coalition To Host Meeting Today At Legion

The information tour across the province by the Pension Coalition continues with another stop in St. Stephen this afternoon.

Provincial retirees do not like a proposal by the Alward to switch their pension plan from defined benefits to a shared risk model.
 
Clifford Kennedy tells Tide News they have been talking with government and now they need direction from the retirees on what to do next.  

He says they had an actuary and they retained a lawyer so they want to update the retirees on what they have been doing for the last six months.

The Pension Coalition meeting is coming up today at 2pm at the St. Stephen Legion, 43 Queen Street.

Teen In Court After Trying To Rob Tim Horton's

A teenager charged in connection with the attempted robbery of a Tim Hortons on the weekend pleading guilty.

Just after 3am on Sunday morning, 19-year old Jacob Michael Byers came into the coffee shop on Landsdowne Avenue in Saint John.

As he walked towards the counter, he put his hand in his hoodie so it looked like a weapon and said "Gimme the money from the till...all of it."

When staff told him they didn't have a key, he took off.

He was later arrested at a traffic stop. The woman driving the vehicle was detained.

Byers will make his next court appearance on October 23.

Education Is The Key To Solving NB's Woes

We always say our kids are our future, but it's time to put our money where our mouth is: that from Mariner Partners CEO Gerry Pond who was recently honored for his contributions to education in the region. 

He explains New Brunswick, like a lot of places, is in a period of challenge at the moment and we need to look to our schools to get us out of it.

Pond further explained we need to crush the silos and stop bickering about the wrong things in order to move ahead.

Project Aims To Eliminate Breastfeeding Stigma

A New Brunswick dietician wants to erase the stigma surrounding breastfeeding in public. 

Giselle Powell of Horizon Health says they're piloting their Breastfeeding Friendly Community project in Quispamsis and they're hoping to roll it out in other municipalities as well. 

Powell tells Tide News, as it stands, many women don't feel comfortable breastfeeding their child when they're out of the house. She says moms should be able to breastfeed in the food court, at sports games, anywhere they want to.

The first week of October is Breastfeeding Week in Canada.

Financial Update Coming Soon

Finance Minister Blaine Higgs says a financial update is coming.

He says the government is waiting for the auditor general's office to finish with the first quarter results and the fiscal year end results.

Higgs tells Tide News the department's are doing well controlling expenses and staying on budget adding last year was the first in 11 years under the previous year's spending.

Higgs says revenue has dipped again and they expects those financial results to be released by the end of the month.

N.B. School Launching Rights-Respecting Initiative

An elementary school in Fredericton is going to be the first of its kind in Atlantic Canada to launch an initiative teaching students about rights and respect. 

The program was created by UNICEF and is called Rights Respecting Schools. It's been adopted by Park Street Elementary on the North side of Fredericton.

The province's Child & Youth Advocate Norman Bosse tells Tide News changing someone's behaviour has to start at a very young age. Bosse says this will, hopefully, create an entire generation of children who know their rights and the rights of others and respect them. He says they're looking at implementing a similar educational process in other elementary schools in New Brunswick.

Bosse will be at Park Street Elementary when the initiative officially launches on Nov. 20.