CHMA is continuing its series of short candidate interviews ahead of Tantramar’s municipal election on May 11.
This time, Clinton Davis sat down with K.C. Hingley, one of two candidates running for the Ward 5 council seat. Hingley spoke about why he’s running, the concerns he’s hearing from residents, and what he would want to focus on if elected.
Listen to the interview below.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
Can you tell me a little about yourself?
I am originally from British Columbia. My family and I moved out to New Brunswick, specifically to Ward 5, Pointe de Bute, about four years ago. And we came for lots of reasons.
The moral of the story is when we arrived here, we fell in love with the lifestyle, the people, the town. And I particularly have embraced the way I’ve been telling people as I knock on their door that I was born a suburbian British Columbian, but I identify as a rural New Brunswicker, so that’s where I am at now.
I work at Mount Allison in the music department. I’ve been there about three and a half years. Thanks to Mount Allison for having us. Over the last two years, I’ve also been the president of MASA, which is the union for the secretarial, technical and clerical staff.
 Why are you running in the municipal election this year?
Well, like I said, I love the town. I love the place. I wanted to give back. Politics is something that has interested me for a long time. In fact, I even considered running in the last election, the first time that Ward 5 was brought into the town of Tantramar.
However, I hadn’t been here in this town long enough and in a way, I’m really glad that it worked out that way because yes, it would’ve been nice to have run. It would’ve been great that the previous incumbent in my position that I’m running for had had some competition because it was an acclamation last time.
But because I’ve spent these last four years getting busy, I’ve got organized with the union. I spent a year as the communications officer, two years as the president. I’ve been honing my skills as a negotiator, a public speaker, someone who is happy to dig into a policy and find out not just what the policy says, but what that means for the people and how changing it might affect people. I’ve seen change, I’ve seen things that people in leadership are trying to make, changes that haven’t been properly expressed to the people in my opinion.
I’ve seen that here at Mount Allison. I’ve seen it in the town and I see a town that is growing up. We are just in our second term now, our second four years as the town of Tantramar. I think there is room for new voices. Hopefully we also have some experience on this council as it comes up.
But I am looking to be the new voice for our community out in Ward 5 and a strong voice in Tantramar itself.
If elected on May 11th, what do you hope to accomplish?
Well, I’ve developed a three-point platform for this election. Being one out of eight councillors plus a mayor, no one person is going into this with the ability to make unilateral change.
I’m not here to say I’m definitely gonna do this, but there are some things that I think I can steer the ship in a certain way. The first one, having to do with Ward 5 itself, what I’m hearing from the people when I walk around knock on doors, is that there’s little problems.
There’s things that haven’t been addressed maybe when it was part of a local service district for the province. Now that we’re part of a town, they still haven’t been addressed and I think they’re easy enough to remedy. One of my neighbors said, you know, we’ve got a little green bar sign that says Pointe de Bute when you drive by. Now that we’re part of a town, can’t we get a nicer sign? I said, you know, that’s probably a pretty good request. I know some people out on Pointe de Bute Road and Carter Crossroad that are concerned about the speed limits. You know, I live on Highway 16 myself. I think it wouldn’t hurt anyone to drive a little bit slower on Highway 16 and the areas where there’s houses, but the speed limits on Pointe de Bute are 80 kilometers an hour, which is wild for a small farm road.
So the second platform item is good governance. I’m gonna keep this one a bit short because this is what you’re gonna hear from a lot of the town candidates. There are some issues that need to be taken care of. Of course, we’ve got issues in the fire department, we’ve got issues with the gas plant just up the road. I want to be a strong voice. I want to hear from my people in my riding. And I wanna move forward with really, really good decisions on that.
And the last one, which I haven’t heard from anyone else, is arts and culture. I think the town is a little bit too reliant on this wonderful institution Mount Allison to bring arts and culture to us. But I think arts and culture, I think a long-term goal for me would be a cultural center that can bring touring artists, can develop local theatre companies and also display local and other touring arts, as the case may be.
 Thank you so much for your time, K.C. I wish you the best of luck come May 11th, as we wish the same for all the candidates.
Thank you, Clinton.
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Ward 5 voters will choose between K.C. Hingley and Wayne Wells on May 11. CHMA will continue publishing candidate interviews as election day approaches. For more election news, visit CHMA’s Tantramar Municipal Elections 2026 page.
Clinton Davis is a community journalist and audio producer covering the people, events, and ideas shaping the Tantramar region.
