Memramcook-Tantramar MLA Megan Mitton was on the Mount Allison campus on Wednesday for a meet and greet with students organized by the Mount Allison Students’ Union. A small group of students gathered to ask about public funding for post secondary institutions, bilingualism in New Brunswick, and climate change policies, including the future of energy production in the province.
CHMA caught up with Mitton just before the session to ask her about some recent issues getting provincial attention:
Transcript of audio:
CHMA: So, Megan, you’re a member of the Standing Committee on Climate Change and Environmental Stewardship. Last month, there were two days of hearings about small modular nuclear reactors with lots of radically different perspectives. Some say SMRs will be part of efforts to get greenhouse gases under control. Others say they expose New Brunswick to risk in terms of environmental issues coming from the nuclear waste they create. What was your takeaway from those hearings?
Megan Mitton: So we definitely heard about some of the risks, whether that be with the waste, nuclear proliferation. And we heard that this technology doesn’t exist yet. Specifically, the small modular nuclear reactors, is this even going to be viable? Is it going to be ready in time to really help us meet our climate change goals, to reduce emissions as fast as possible? And what’s the cost going to be? What does this even really look like for New Brunswick? So what many presenters actually told us was, you should be looking at renewable energy, at a clean electricity strategy. Not having such a narrow focus, having a broader focus. And I actually moved a motion for us to look at a clean energy strategy through hearings, and we’re going to be doing that this year.
CHMA: How broad will that be? What will the idea behind those hearings be? Are you going to look at comparing SMR technology to renewable technology to others, like battery storage? Tell me a bit more about that.
Megan Mitton: The idea is to really hear from experts on pathways to decarbonisation that New Brunswick can follow. What does our grid need to look like? What type of energy do we need to use? It’s not going to be just one thing. We are going to need solar, we’re going to need battery storage. So what does a plan look like? What pathways can we follow as a province as quickly as possible?
CHMA: Also last week, you issued a statement to call for Health Minister Bruce Fitch to launch an investigation into potential environmental causes of the high rate of neurodegenerative disease that we’ve seen, especially in young New Brunswickers. Tell me a bit about that call, why you made it.
Megan Mitton: So the Department of Health has been really tight lipped on what’s been going on. But we know from individuals and their families speaking out, people who have become sick, they don’t know why they may have not even received a diagnosis. And these would be the people that initially were considered to have like a mystery disease.
We haven’t really heard anything for a long time. We know the province capped how many people they were even counting, and they’ve stopped counting. But there are people who have continued counting, who have continued doing testing. And there are investigative journalists, Canadaland and The Guardian have published reports where they’ve done RTIs as they’ve looked at documents, and have shown that the Department of Health, and the Higgs government turned down $5 million dollars that was being offered to help them do research into this, from the federal level. They did not test for environmental toxins. Really, they have not found the answers that these patients and their families need. And they deserve answers. And so that’s why I’m calling for them to do something.
CHMA: Now, The Guardian had indicated, in a letter from Dr. Marrero, who has been heavily involved in this research so far, that there was potential for herbicides like glyphosate to be… That we need to be testing for the effects of those in these patients. Are you concerned there might be an issue with an herbicide like glyphosate, that could be potentially causing issues, health issues?
Megan Mitton: I think the key thing is we need to rule out things like glyphosate and other environmental toxins that exist. We know BMA and other cyanotoxins that come from cyanobacteria, which is blue-green algae.
We know that there have been harmful algal blooms in our waterways, including in the Moncton reservoir where they get drinking water. And it’s several of them. So we need to rule those things out. We need to find out what is causing it. And so glyphosate may be playing a factor… maybe glyphosate is even contributing to cyanobacteria being able to reproduce? We need answers. We need to rule out environmental toxins. We don’t have proper testing happening for cyanotoxins in the province, from what I was able to gather, not only asking the Department of Health about it, but asking the Department of Environment not that long ago. So there’s more to be done on that.
CHMA: Another health care question for you… In early January, Medavie changed its protocol, which would call qualified local fire departments to medical calls so they could assist, sometimes providing life saving help,in a very quick way that ambulances in many rural parts of the province can’t do. And we’ve heard some stories on CHMA recently about people left out in the cold for a long time, and also people getting getting help from fire departments that probably saved their lives. What can you tell us about why this change has happened now? And what have you been hearing from constituents? And what do you think you’re going to be doing to look into this?
Megan Mitton: So there were two things that really happened. Ambulance New Brunswick changed the technology they were using, and changed from using radios to cell phones. So there’s actually concerns there, because there’s not universal cell coverage in the province. So that’s one of the issues, in terms of them switching. Part of that switch, was that they had had agreements with some fire departments for first responders to be called to respond to emergencies. Those fire departments, basically, the new technology, couldn’t do that. And so those fire departments just stopped getting those calls.
This is a major issue. And especially important in rural areas. And so I have been hearing from people. I’ve spoken to Ambulance New Brunswick. I’ve been speaking to people who serve in fire departments and asking them what are the implications of this and what needs to be done. And there have been people who, as you’ve been covering, have been left out in the cold.
What I would say is that there needs to be more universal dispatching system. Basically, we don’t have a province wide one; we have several around the province. And it feels like nobody really wants to be responsible for it. That’s really what I’m concluding, as I’ve been looking into it. What needs to happen is that first responders need to be called to emergencies. Especially, we know that the delays for ambulances, especially in rural areas, have gotten even longer. We know there’s problems with offload delays. We need them to be called. And for it to happen more automatically, so that, you know, people’s lives can be saved. Because, you know, those people I’ve spoken with who’ve served in fire departments are saying, we have saved lives. And we’re worried that that someone will lose their life, because of this gap that now exists.
CHMA: Medavie says that, you know, they had been doing it, but it wasn’t part of their mandate. They’ve also said that they are going to be calling these fire departments under certain conditions, which sort of leads me to think that the technology does exist to call the fire departments and there’s a decision made not to do it as often. Have you spoken directly to Medavie themselves? It sort of begs the question, I’ve heard some people comment, maybe it’s a money issue? Like do they need resources to cover off this kind of extra dispatching that they’re doing? I guess I’m questioning whether, do we know for sure that this is a technological issue? Or do we think it might just be budgetary and resource allocation?
Megan Mitton: I think that’s a good question. And we don’t really know the answer yet. We know that as they switched, there was something that they felt they couldn’t do anymore. I don’t think we we 100% know exactly why. And it does seem like something we that should be able to be resolved. Why can’t we call first responders to emergencies that that feels like a really obvious thing we should be able to do. And so I’m I’m trying to put the pieces the pieces of the puzzle together and push for for this to get resolved as soon as possible.