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 Tori Weldon, one of eight candidates running for one of four Ward 3 council seats. Weldon spoke about her background in journalism, why she decided to run, and what she 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?
Okay. Well, I mean, I guess the basics. I’m a journalist. I currently run my own business. I’m a podcast producer and consultant. I’m from here. I’ve lived here for most of my life. I’m raising my family here. Also, I guess because of my job, I work from home a lot. I have an office space but I work by myself. I don’t get to work in person. So I really, really like being out in the community and talking to different people. And I think one way (I do that), I’m a volunteer with the Owens Art Gallery. I’ve done a lot of MCing for them, their different fundraisers. Same with Sappy Fest – they usually mc Sunday night; I host people at my house when they’re here. A couple of years ago, I was part of a group, we raised $2,500 for the food bank here in Sackville. I really just sort of like being involved and being out in the community.
For fun, I swim at Silver Lake as often as possible. What else? I’m a regular at the over-25 pickup basketball games. I like to cross country ski. It’s one of my favorite things to do in the winter. And I mean, overall just I really like living in Sackville.
 Why are you running in the municipal election this year?
I think a big reason I decided to run, when I was a CBC journalist, I had to put a lot of time into covering municipal politics. I was the Moncton city reporter for a long time. I would go to all the meetings. I went to the Codiac Regional Policing Authority meetings. I put a lot of time in it and I found it incredibly interesting. I also saw just hours and hours and hours of this, but I also saw a lot of decisions get made. So I know what a good decision looks like and I know what a bad decision looks like, and that’s the immediate effect. But also down the road, when problems are left to fester, they absolutely grow. So really I’m just running because I would like to be part of a well-functioning and engaged council. And I think a lot of my experience would sort of help me do that.
If elected on May 11th, what do you hope to accomplish?
I think that it’s pretty basic what I’m looking for. But what I would love to see happen in Tantramar is just that we all live in a community where we feel safe, properly housed and fed. It’s just those basic things. And I think in order to do that, we need affordable housing. We need a thriving economy, we need safe streets, and we need a working hospital. I mean, and not to mention a fire department, a well-functioning fire department, specifically here in Sackville.
I think here in Tantramar, we do a lot of things really well. We’ve got sports for kids. We’ve got a wonderful walkable downtown. We’ve got more housing going in, so there’s just gonna be more and more people down there, which I think will really add to the downtown of Sackville. We’ve got a thriving arts and culture scene. The hospital seems to be in a really great position. There’s the (nursing) school in there now. There’s day surgery. I was in there recently. There’s an iron clinic, so people from outside areas, Greater Moncton, they’re driving to Sackville to come get iron infusions. While they’re here, they’re getting lunch, they’re sort of looking around. So because of the work of a lot of dedicated volunteers, the hospital seems to be in a really good position. But there’s Nursing Homes Without Walls. We’ve got the Sackville Food Bank and Dorchester, there’s Station 8. There’s so many good things happening. I think we can really add to that. But I think an important part of this is just we need to have diligence to keep what we’ve got. We can’t take it for granted. It takes a lot of hard work. There’s a lot of people who do that, but I think as a council member, it’s really important to be involved. But not only that, it’s the funding. As a council member, you get to decide where the money goes, and I think it’s just really important to do that fairly.
 Thank you so much for your time, Tori. 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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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.
