Since January, former Sackville CAO Jamie Burke has been working for Stantec as Atlantic Lead in Urban Planning based out of the company’s Moncton office. It’s a job that could one day land Burke back working for Tantramar, as a contracted consultant.

Stantec’s business in Atlantic Canada is driven by public sector clients, says Burke, including municipalities, and provincial and federal government departments and agencies. “A lot of municipalities, both big and small, have a variety of planning documents,” says Burke, “whether it’s new municipal plans, official plans, zoning bylaws, or other types of regulatory documents that dictate how land can and cannot be used. So that’s one area where Stantec is around to help.”

And Plan 360—the planning department of the Southeast Regional Service Commission which is responsible for everything from processing building permits and rezoning requests, to writing municipal and regional plans—may need that help. When Tantramar was formed after the recent amalgamation of Sackville and Dorchester, the former town of Sackville’s 2015 municipal plan was already overdue for a review. Now the expanded municipality is in need of a new plan that will encompass two former municipalities and previously unincorporated districts. Plan 360’s Lori Bickford says that process could start in 2024, and might rely on external consultants depending on staffing levels at the commission.

The new town of Tantramar is also due for a revised Recreation Master Plan, and the town has yet to develop an Active Transportation plan. Those are all projects that consultants at Stantec could find themselves working on. “By all means it could mean that I’d be back in front of the new Tantramar Council presenting on a project that we were retained to provide consulting services for,” says Burke.

Burke served as CAO of Sackville from April 2020 to November 2022, and before that, as the town’s manager of corporate projects for six years. He formally resigned as CAO at the end of October 2022, after a controversial post-amalgamation hiring process overseen by provincial consultant Chad Peters and the committee he appointed. In the internal competition between former Dorchester CAO Jennifer Borne and Burke, Borne was hired, but not before then-deputy mayor Andrew Black resigned from the committee in protest of the hiring process.

From his new vantage point working for Stantec, Burke doesn’t sound like he holds a grudge. “I thoroughly enjoyed my time working for the town of Sackville,” says Burke. “I have nothing but positive things to say about my time with the municipality.” Burke says he is thankful for the “amazing team” he worked with in the town. “We accomplished a lot of amazing things,” says Burke. “And it’s always rewarding when you live and work in the same community, and you get to see the fruits of your labour.”

Despite being based out of Moncton, Burke will continue to live in Sackville, where his partner teaches in the Fine Arts Department at Mount Allison University. “We’re rooted in Sackville,” says Burke. “We live downtown, we always have since 2006.”

Burke says he’s excited to put his “planning hat” back on with Stantec, and feels his time working with the town will help him in his new job. “I’m really confident that that experience is going to help design even better communities in Atlantic Canada,” says Burke.

CHMA spoke to Burke in February, to find out about his new position, and what it was like leaving his old one behind. We started off asking Burke what kind of projects he might be working on as an urban planning consultant: