Ex-PC cabinet minister demands Enbridge Gas reforms to be rescinded | CBC

A New Brunswick woman was dismissed by an Irving-owned company for professional reasons, not because she complained about the president’s driving, a Saint John hearing was told Wednesday.
See also: Fired woman complained about Irving Jr.’s speeding

Protesters angry over shale gas exploration in New Brunswick are continuing their blockade that has halted the movement of trucks owned by Southwestern Resources Canada that are used in seismic testing.

[New Brunswick] NDP Leader Dominic Cardy is facing questions about his leadership from within his own party as tensions remain over his acclamation as the party’s leader and the future of the NDP. | CBC

About 170 workers are picketing outside of Moosehead Breweries saying the Saint John-based company locked them out over a contract dispute.

From the NB Media Co-op

“New Brunswick Finance Minister Blaine Higgs is floating the idea of a two-tiered minimum wage… The base hourly rate in New Brunswick is $9, and there are plans to increase it to $10 by September.

Higgs suggested keeping the wage at $9 an hour for workers under 18 years old but going ahead with the increase for workers over 18.”

“The New Brunswick government is looking at cutting some elective medical services it pays for in order to deal with a budget deficit. Health Minister Madeleine Dubé said she wants to cut $800,000 from the current Medicare budget.” -Capitalism is a major barrier to applying science for the improvement of living standards.

New Brunswick’s Progressive Conservatives have broken an election promise to have a review of auto insurance under way by the end of 2010.

Thirty per cent of those surveyed did not feel their mental health was very good or excellent.
As for physical health, the report said three out of five young New Brunswickers are not active enough, three out of four do not eat the recommended amount of fruit and vegetables and only half get eight hours of sleep per night.
One out of every four young persons is overweight or obese.

Minimum hourly wages in New Brunswick are supposed to go up to $9.50 in April and $10 by September 2011.

“Cardy, who was the party’s campaign director in the 2010 election, became the first contender to replace former leader Roger Duguay.”

Jesse Travis has been selected as New Brunswick’s NDP interim leader as the party prepares for a full leadership convention next spring.

“Many New Brunswick communities, such as Miramichi and Dalhousie, have been hit hard by mill closures in recent years… The Conservation Council is going to recommend at the forestry meeting that the provincial government create a Crown Lands Trustee, which would be an independent officer of the legislature, similar to the auditor general.”

“Five years ago, the region also depended upon 60 major employers and 18,000 Miramichiers were employed. Now, the pulp and paper mill is being demolished, there are only about 40 major employers left in the region, the regional hospital has become the largest employer in town, and only about 10,000 Miramichiers are currently employed.”
-The senile decay of capitalism.

“When I walk around campus you may not notice who I am. My short red hair and broad shoulders adorned with flannel and wide legged jeans cause my slender frame to appear masculine. Any passer-by would honestly confuse me for male and think nothing of it, for which I hold no grudge or frustration.”

“Former New Brunswick NDP leader Roger Duguay says he is leaving the party altogether because of the way party veterans feuded with “outsiders” who worked on the fall election campaign. Duguay, who resigned as party leader last week, told Radio-Canada he had difficulty with the feuding between some party veterans and others he called — in French — “the famous team of outsiders…

“There were certainly people who were around the party for a long time who resisted change, as happens in any political party,” Cardy said Tuesday.”"
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1. People in this province often vote with their feet. For many, migration west is necessary for economic reasons, regardless of which party is in power.
2. The first-past-the-post electoral system yields perverse results. There is no point in casting a vote if it does not go towards electing legislators.
There is a saying that if you don’t vote then you can’t complain. What if the complaint is that there is nothing worth voting for? Actually, this time there was: Voting the Liberals out of power. But most people have little confidence in the alternative.

Employees of the former St. Anne-Nackawic pulp and paper mill near Fredericton have lost their $4-million lawsuit against their union.

Don’t voters care? Not yet, apparently.

“I don’t think people have the connected dots yet between their visceral anger about the state of politics today and about feeling that the legislatures and Parliament aren’t accountable, aren’t really representative of our interests.” | The Globe and Mail