On Friday’s Tantramar Report:

There’s an outbreak of COVID-19 at the Drew Nursing Home in Sackville. Five cases have been diagnosed this week, two in residents and three in employees. A public health team has been assigned by the province, and the Drew is currently locked down with no visitors allowed and PPE protocols in place. Officials say testing and heightened restrictions will continue until the risk is gone.

A fire damaged a home in Westcock early Thursday morning and now neighbours are organizing to help out the displaced owner, Kevin Brown. Sackville Fire Department deputy chief Mike Green says the fire was put out quickly, and the house is still standing. Green says Brown was checked over by Ambulance New Brunswick, and noted no significant injuries. The RCMP also attended the scene, and found the fire to be non-criminal in nature. Brown’s neighbours have started an effort to collect donations to help him through the aftermath of the fire. Cheryl Ward has posted information on the Westcock Community Concerns Facebook group. Ward says Brown doesn’t yet know what he can salvage from his home, and he is temporarily displaced.

Last night, four of Beausejour’s federal candidates gathered at town hall to share their views and positions as would-be MPs. We bring you some highlights on Tantramar Report, and more coverage later today on chmafm.com

Voters need to bring appropriate ID, and make sure they are at the correct polling station on election day, says Elections Canada spokesperson Francoise Engehard. And fewer voters will need to show up on election day, since advanced polls have become more and more widely used in recent elections. Engehard says upwards of 5 million Canadians have already voted in advanced polls. Election Day is Monday, and voters can check for their correct polling station at elections.ca

Voters in the neighbouring riding of Cumberland-Colchester won’t have an NDP choice on their ballot when they go to the polls on Monday. Up until Wednesday, 18-year-old Dan Osborne of Amherst was running in the riding, but after a questionable tweet from 2019 surfaced on social media, Osborne resigned his candidacy, leaving the NDP without a candidate in the Nova Scotia riding. When Osborne was 16 years old, he tweeted at Oprah, asking the question “Was Auschwitz a real place?” That Tweet surfaced this week, and Osborne apologized from his current Twitter account, saying he couldn’t recall posting the tweet, and that “the role of Auschwitz and the history of the holocaust is one we should never forget.”

This Saturday is Neighbour Day in Memramcook-Tantramar. Organizer Kate Doyle says the idea of the day is to highlight the value of small acts of kindness and connection between neighbours, which has become increasingly important during the pandemic. The Memramcook-Tantramar Community Task Force has created a Neighbour Day toolkit with ideas on what people can do to celebrate, and Doyle says the ideas are applicable anytime, not just this Saturday.

Mountie football is back. The Mounties play their first regular season game against the Acadia Axemen at 2pm on Saturday at Alumni Field in Sackville. The Mounties missed a complete season last year, after Atlantic University Sport called it off due to the pandemic. Last week, they played an exhibition game against St. Mary’s University, with SMU coming out on top 26 to 6.