Latest news with #InformationMorningSaintJohn
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Grand chief critcizes lack of consultation on Saint John industrial park expansion
Wolastoqey Grand Chief Ron Tremblay said the lack of consultation on plans to expand an industrial park in Saint John continues a track record of Indigenous input being an afterthought. "The Peace and Friendship Treaty back in 1725 clearly stated that we never surrendered any land or resources to the Crown or the Crown dependents," Tremblay said to Information Morning Saint John. "And under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples that we needed free, prior and informed consent on all the matters that go forward, be it the province or municipalities or the federal government." This week, Tremblay added to the hundreds of letters the City of Saint John has received urging council to turn down the expansion proposal. Tremblay said First Nations were never consulted and if the expansion moves forward, it will impact an area of "enriched wetland" and "disturb a biological system that is vital to every species that is reliant on" the ecosystem. In their pitch to council members when the public hearing process began, city staff said First Nation consultation falls under provincial jurisdiction. When contacted by CBC News, City of Saint John staff directed questions about First Nation engagement to the provincial Department of Indigenous Affairs. The province was not able to respond before deadline. The public hearing for the plan to create more development-ready land in the industrial park began May 12. Since then, more than 50 people have spoken out against the proposal, saying the planned expansion will have impacts on the environment and the nearby community that will last generations. "Our mandate as the traditional governance is to protect our homeland, the waterways and the air for our children, our grandchildren and the next seven generations," Tremblay said. WATCH | 'We should have been at the table,' Wolastoqey grand chief says: "So when land gets threatened like this, we are very firm on our position that we have to look at all the ecosystems." Tremblay said First Nation input often comes far too late in the game. "Unfortunately a lot of times it happens after the fact," he said. "Especially with the Grand Council, we're usually alerted well into any discussions, where we're invited at the table after the aftermath of whatever's been discussed or decided already. So that's not proper consultation." Protests growing past city limits The city and supporters of the plan say the expansion is needed because of what presenters described as an uncertain economic future for the province, including low projected growth in GDP in the coming year and Saint John's potential for tariff exposure. City staff say the area is ideal because of its access to water, electricity and other resources not available elsewhere in the city. While the fate of the industrial park expansion is still in limbo, the opposition to it has extended past the boundaries of the rural community and even the city. City staff have received letters and input from people living in other cities and provinces, including those from Fredericton and Halifax. Lorneville residents say they've also taken their fight to the provincial legislature in hopes of speaking with the premier. MP John Williamson, whose riding includes Lorneville, also wrote in opposition and attended a protest against the plan on the weekend before the public hearing started. The city also recently received a letter from the Conservation Council of New Brunswick asking council to delay the expansion until environmental impacts are better understood. The plan does have supporters. The city has received statements and letters of support from business groups such as Envision Saint John and Opportunities New Brunswick. Council needs to hear from individuals and groups — for and against — before they vote on the proposal. But so far, due to sheer numbers, only those opposed have been able to speak during the previous two meetings — both lasting late into the evening. The public hearing on the application will continue on June 3.
CBC
27-03-2025
- Business
- CBC
Fast-tracked housing fund will help Saint John build more than 1,100 new units, official says
A pot of money worth $9.2 million will help Saint John build hundreds of urgently needed new housing units over the next two years, a city official says. Carrie Smith, project manager of the city's housing accelerator project, said the funding is linked to plans for 1,158 new units by the end of 2026. "We're all just elated and we're looking forward to doing more good work around housing in the city," Smith told Information Morning Saint John. Smith also said that half of what is being developed will be affordable housing, well above the 101 units earmarked in the city's action plan for the fund. In an interview, Smith said Saint John is trying to improve on a tight vacancy rate that hovers around two per cent. "I think we have a pretty big gap," Smith said, adding that demand for housing continues to grow each year. "Our growth is projected to be about two per cent. So we're not making any progress if we can't get more units built, and we need places for people to live if they want to work and grow the city." Administered by CMHC, or the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., the Housing Accelerator Fund aims to fast-track housing work across the country to address high costs, low inventories and poor access. Smith said access to the program has already led to results. "The grant programs that we've launched as part of this have really revitalized some stalled housing projects, and a number of projects that have been kind of in the wings are now looking to move forward within the next year or so," Smith said. In a statement, CMHC said the program will "help cut red tape" and help add at least 112,000 new homes across Canada by 2028. The fund's action plan states that homes being constructed are a combination of single-unit houses and multi-unit buildings.
CBC
08-03-2025
- Business
- CBC
Saint John energy company says it hit milestone in recycling nuclear waste for energy
A Saint John-based nuclear engineering company says it has hit a milestone in its aim to reduce waste coming from nuclear energy by turning that waste into usable energy. The company — Moltex Clean Energy — is developing a process to extract usable energy from nuclear waste in what it calls the waste to stable-salt process. This process takes the "high-level waste" from existing nuclear fuel that comes from nuclear generating plants and creates new fuel out of it, said company CEO Rory O'Sullivan on Information Morning Saint John. The company announced success this week in extracting what O'Sullivan called "long-lived hazardous materials" out of nuclear waste. "Nuclear waste has been one of the big impediments of nuclear power because of that long radioactivity of the waste," O'Sullivan said. And while there are existing processes to manage nuclear waste, that waste isn't generally well accepted by the public, "whereas the concept of recycling the waste, and getting more energy out of it, and reducing the amount of long-lived hazardous radioactive products is very appealing," he said. The company is aiming to use the process to power a 300 megawatt small modular reactor at the Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station. Moltex expects that SMR to be operational by the early 2030s. The process — according to information released by Moltex — takes nuclear fuel and separates it. What starts out as a "bundle of fuel," which is 100 per cent "high-level" waste, becomes 98 per cent "intermediate" waste by removing what's called "fuel salt" and other products. The high-level waste accounts for roughly one per cent of the total waste, according to the company. This extracted "stable salt" would be used to create energy and the leftover "intermediate waste" has a footprint three times less than the original fuel bundle, Moltex said. Reduced liability for future generations Warren Mabee, director of energy and environmental policy at Queen's University, said the technology holds great promise. "This is one of the most important things I think that the nuclear industry has to figure out — how to deal with waste that comes from these plants," Mabee said. "Despite the fact that nuclear energy is now more than half a century old, we really haven't cracked that nut. This announcement is just one step closer to hopefully having solved that problem." O'Sullivan said that while putting nuclear waste in ground repository is safe, it's also a large and costly endeavour and that using parts of the waste for fuel makes more economic sense. The project is funded by the Federal Strategic Innovation Fund and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and has partnerships with national stakeholders, such as reactor supplier Candu Energy.
CBC
14-02-2025
- Business
- CBC
Closure of Saint John seafood institution rattles vendors at City Market
Billy's Seafood Company announced closure on Feb. 4 in a post on social media The closure of a Saint John seafood institution is raising concerns about the broader future of the entire City Market. Billy's Seafood Company, a longtime fixture at the market run by Billy Grant, closed its doors suddenly on Feb. 4, putting an end to more than 30 years of business. "It's hard to lose someone who's been a staple of the market," Andrew MacDonald, manager of the market, said. "You walk into the City Market and the very first thing you see is a giant cut-out of Billy," MacDonald said on Information Morning Saint John. "Billy's a really friendly and charismatic person who you see around." A Facebook post on the restaurant's page said the business was closing "with heavy hearts … after being an honoured part of the Saint John City Market for 32 years." In the post, Grant said he started in the market when he was 17 years old, and after weathering major renovations of the market, the loss of patio revenue because of the demolition and construction at 97 King St., and the pandemic, he had "now realized that the business is simply not viable and must close effective immediately." CBC News has contacted Grant several times for an interview since the business closed, but has not heard back. In a previous interview in 2024, Grant spoke about how construction around his restaurant had been going on a long time and was hurting his business. "Going on three or four years, this is not acceptable," he said. "It's really affected my company a lot. Business is down from it." Speaking about the business's cause for closure, MacDonald cited overall changes in spending habits and the impact of COVID-19. He also said that it may just have been the natural flow of the market and that the departure might also provide the opportunity to make physical changes to the building itself, making use of the space in a new way. Other businesses in the market have taken the abrupt closure hard. "Everyone is feeling really sad," Jill Laskey-Parry, owner of the Blue Pelican Bath and Body shop, said. She described the closure of Billy's restaurant as devastating and not an isolated event. "We're all a little bit alarmed when we see big staples of the market leaving … Sisters, Sagratis, Slocum and Ferris, Uncorked. You know, those are all staples of the City Market." Laskey-Parry said that businesses uptown have had a hard time since the COVID-19 pandemic, when people got used to working from home. She said that uptown entrepreneurs need to start working together to encourage people to visit area again, just for the experience. She is meeting with the city to discuss potential solutions for uptown businesses that are currently struggling, and she feels there's reason to hope. "I am optimistic, especially with today's climate, that people are really looking at investing again in their local economy, and I do believe that entrepreneurs have that innovative spirit and that's where innovation comes from, not necessarily from the formula that you'll see in a big box format."
