Rothesay Mayoral Forum Derailed By COVID-19 Denials

The Saint John Region Chamber continued its mayoral candidate forum Wednesday with the two candidates vying to become Rothesay’s next mayor.

The race features incumbent Nancy Grant and political newcomer Elizabeth Kramer.

Moderated by chamber president David Duplisea, topics ranged from mental health and infrastructure to regionalization and amalgamation.

Grant largely focused on the record of the current council, saying she would continue the work they have focused on over the past several years.

Kramer, however, frequently diverted the conversation and questions into discussions of COVID-19 denialism, and questioning of Public Health guidelines.

Mental Health

Asked about the mental health issue faced by the community, Kramer said the situation has ‘exploded’ since the pandemic.

She believes the provincial government has worsened the situation by enforcing guidelines designed to curb the spread of COVID-19, like self-isolation rules and shutting down inter-provincial travel.

“All these elements that would make life better are the ones that would let us achieve our freedoms again,” Kramer said. “Namely the freedoms that are set forth in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which the common person has seemed to either a) not even knew that they had before, or b) laid it to the wayside in favour of a protection of a virus that is highly inflated.”

Kramer continued by saying she did not plan to follow Public Health guidelines enforcing mandatory masks this summer.

“I’m not really caring about what phase, colour we’re in,” she said. “I’m going to be breathing freely, and I hope my people will join me in that endeavour.”

Asked the same question, Grant cited the Rothesay Hive, an age-friendly community centre which opened in 2019, to help seniors socialize.

She says moving forward she’s focused on the Rothesay arena, because of the importance of physical activity on mental health.

“We all know that physical fitness is very important in health, and very important in poverty, and we need our arena,” Grant said. “We have had a bit of a stalemate over what to do with the arena, but one of my first goals is to actually achieve public consultation into the future of the arena.”

Population Growth & Infrastructure Upgrades

Duplisea cited the region’s goal of bringing in 2,000 people each year, asking how as mayor the candidates would help Rothesay prepare for a possible population uptick.

Kramer began by mentioning how she has heard about families moving here from Ontario before detouring once again to criticize Public Health guidelines.

“That middle class will increase for a little while until the government decides to put full-out restrictions as in you can’t move even to a separate province, you can’t even drive to town if you will because literally that’s the way that’s going here,” she said.

There are currently no guidelines against travel within a health zone.

Kramer then said she thinks the government will continue to impose any arbitrary guideline they see fit.

“What I had in mind was doing anything (other) than obeying the ridiculous, unjustified emergency measures,” Kramer said.

As a follow-up, she was asked to clarify her stance on the town’s infrastructure.

“I don’t think we need any infrastructure,” Kramer said. “I think you need to cancel the emergency measures and let people make their own health decisions.”

Grant also began by citing people moving to New Brunswick from out of province during the pandemic, which she says has helped in some ways but has worsened the affordable housing stock.

“It has put a severe crunch in our housing market, it’s driven rents up, it’s driven housing prices up,” she said.

The incumbent said council is currently working on several projects that should get around the town’s geographic restraints.

“Now with our municipal plan, and the secondary plan for the Hillside plans, that is a game-changer, and we do have room to open up,” Grant said. “Even now, we’re starting a new 55-lot subdivision at Sagamore Point, and there is an actual development agreement for 115 units in central Rothesay.”

Regionalization

The final question dealt with amalgamation and regionalizing services with other Greater Saint John municipalities.

Grant said she’s long opposed amalgamation, but she does support continued dialogue between the regions.

“The problem has been that all of the discussion so far has been centered simply around dollars to be sent to Saint John,” she said. “Just pay more for services in some other municipality.”

She said the discussion needs to include what all the municipalities can do to help each other.

“We need true collaboration, true input from everybody, and we need to look for cost effectiveness,” Grant said.

Asked the same question, Kramer began by talking about the importance of citizens working together before citing the globalist agenda, often referred to by online conspiracy theorists.

“The ultimate goal of the globalist agenda is to make everybody be in the same community, not have housing choices, and not go anywhere, so we really need to be preparing for that,” she said.

Kramer then jumped back to discussing the town’s housing stock, which she believes could be solved as an unintended side effect of ongoing mental health issues.

“There is going to be some housing coming available, because I really believe the citizenry of the retired are on a decline,” she said. “Those are the people that are leaving us soon, so I don’t think that we’ll be having struggles with housing seniors in the near future.”

“I think pretty soon we will not have too many seniors to need care anymore, given the current restrictions and how everybody feels about their life right now.”

Kramer then pivoted again to decrying the province’s emergency measures before being interrupted by Duplisea.

He said many viewers were reaching out about some of her comments.

“My intention was not to turn this into a vaccination, COVID type of discussion, but I did want to acknowledge the people that sent in and expressed their displeasure over the wording,” Duplisea said before ending the forum.

Full video from the event can be seen below.