CHMA is continuing its series of short candidate interviews ahead of Tantramar’s municipal election on May 11.
This time, Mike Robar sat down with mayoral candidate Terry Jones, one of three women running to be the next mayor of Tantramar. Jones told us how her experiences in healthcare and education, as well as the Tantramar gas plant, pushed her out of her comfort zone and into the mayoral race.
Listen to the audio below:
This interview has been edited for clarity.
Can you tell me a little about yourself?
 Well, I moved from Nova Scotia to Sackville, New Brunswick 38 years ago with my husband, my kids, and my dog. I quickly found work at Sackville Memorial Hospital as an LPN (Licensed Practical Nurse). I worked there for 10 years, then moved into the education field and worked as an EA (Education Assistant) at Tantramar Regional High School for another 17. I got to know the community through healthcare and education, so I got to learn about parents and then match them up with their children, which was a unique experience. And then I decided in 2018 to open a naturopathic shop of my own. So my background is definitely in caring for community members, family, friends, strangers that I make friends. So yeah, I value health and wellness, and that’s what I do for a living.
Why are you running in the municipal election this year?
 I’m choosing to run to help with some of the lack of transparency within the municipality to bring the community back into being involved and connecting with their councillors, with the mayor, and with their citizen groups. Keeping everybody informed and giving everybody a voice at the table. I only, since amalgamation, have found a voice, and that’s only because of a gas plant that moved into my backyard, which put me out of my comfort zone and moved me forward into public speaking more and organization and working my way through.
I’ve never been a councillor. I’ve never been a mayor. But my goal is to definitely be there for the people to bring forward their concerns and to work my hardest to succeed in making our community stronger by actually amalgamating us and not having pockets that still think back in the old ways that Sackville is Sackville, Dorchester’s Dorchester, and the LSDs are the LSDs. So unification and transparency, open communication, those are very important to me and I think they’re important to the citizens that I’ll be representing if they vote for me.
What would you like to accomplish if you are elected?
Actually, I have so many things on my plate that I would like to change, but I have to target a few. I think we definitely need to look into the fire department issues and get that straightened away as priority number one. I think we need to maintain open communication with all members. And we are limited with how much we can find out about the Montana report, but if there’s a framework there, we need to start to implement it. The new study that’s going through, I think we need to share all of the suggestions, ideas, and any other information that comes forward that is not protected by the right to privacy. Within our community, there’s a lot of fear out there for that simple reason, there’s not been any communication. We don’t know what exactly has taken place, we just know that we’re operating at less than 40 per cent. That’s not a good feeling, especially if you live where I’m at.
My elephant in the room is the gas plant. I know that I am limited. We all are limited because it’s a provincial project, dealing with a crown corporation and a US multinational. But that doesn’t mean we have to be quiet about it. That doesn’t mean we have to accept everything that’s coming down the road. We can definitely push back. We can organize the community. We have a wonderful set of groups: PCIC (Protect the Chignecto Isthmus Coalition), Stop the Tantramar Gas Plant, Seniors for Climate. There are numerous other voices that are being heard. And now this project is having baby projects in PEI and Nova Scotia, so the movement’s getting bigger, there’s more Atlantic involvement. So those are my two issues. I wanna do what I can for openness, communication, and transparency, and to make Tantramar a place where everybody feels heard.
 Thank you so much for sitting down today, Terry. I wish you the best of luck in the upcoming election.
