The Decibel - East to West: voices in Atlantic Canada ahead of the election

Episode Date: March 30, 2025

During the election campaign, the Globe and Mail is travelling across the country to hear about the issues facing people in Canada today.In small communities in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick this week, producer Kasia Mychajlowycz spoke to students, business owners, retirees and more. She found that as some struggle to make ends meet with the rising cost of living in rural Atlantic Canada, many are patriotic in the face of the trade war with the Trump administration.If you’d like the Globe and Mail to visit your community, please e-mail and tell us why at [e-mail]

Hi, it's Maynika. The federal election is now underway, and Globe audio producer Kasia Mihailovich is headed across the country to talk to Canadians to find out what issues matter to you and your life. Today, Kasia takes us to Atlantic Canada to hear what people are thinking there. Hope you enjoy it. I'm not happy about what's going on in the South, you know, with the new president and I don't even want to say his name. This is Margaret Roberts, but everybody calls her Daisy.

She runs a bicycle store in Truro, Nova Scotia called Hubcycle with her husband. I found her on the first day of my road trip to talk to people in Canada about what's on their minds now. It doesn't affect our business a whole lot because we do have a lot of Canadian suppliers and Canadian businesses and they get directly offshore. So the tariffs from the US aren't, there's one or two companies that we've stopped dealing with just because they are from the states. Just because there might be a tariff or just on principle? On principle. And they said they'd cover the tariff,

but it's just the principle of it, I guess, you know? Daisy says she can hardly bear to keep up with the news now because she gets so upset about relations between the US and Canada. She got upset just talking about it with me. I love our country. And, you know, every time I hero Canada, I kind of have a tear in my eye.

I really do get very emotional about it. What makes you emotional about Canada? I just think that we are so lucky to be free. You know, I compare us to other countries where there's wars and stuff, and it just breaks my heart. And you know, I'm, so, you know, when we stand for, on guard for thee, I'm, I'm extremely, you know, I feel very blessed and thankful to be in a country such as Canada. I headed west to New Brunswick to a university town called Sackville. I set up at the biggest intersection in town and ran into Tony Nguyen. What's your name? My name is Tony. And what do

you do here in Sackville? I am a student of Mount Allison University. I grew up in Vietnam and I came here six, seven years ago. So that's my life story. What brought you to Canada? six, seven years ago. So that's my life story. What brought you to Canada? I would have to say the system that you guys have it set up. I know that a lot of people don't really like the government of Canada, but believe me when I say it's still better than many other governments around.

I don't see many people that really love Canada anymore, but rather just complain more than showing how much they love them. Now, having said that, the recent drama between Canada and US does bring out a lot more patriots out to the community, but before this event, it was a shame not to see that much. Yeah, so you consider yourself patriotic?

I would say so, yeah. Of course, Tony still sees room for improvement in the country. I don't know if Canada can afford this, but tuition-wise for a university and college, I know a lot of European countries were able to achieve free education for post-secondary students, so perhaps that is something that the government of Canada could potentially be aiming at one day. So that's the dream. And then about an hour's drive west

is the village of Pedikodiak. 2021 census, there were just shy of 1,500 residents here. Can you say it so I say it right? Petticoadiac. Okay, the emphasis at the end. And people from Petticoadiac, they're called? Petticoadiacers. People told me here, and in Sackville, and in Truro, that plenty of people from the bigger

cities or Ontario or even abroad were moving here. They say they're drawn to the cheaper living costs and a different quality of life. The best part of here is community. Dan Pollock is a retired industrial arts school teacher, he was the principal, and I found out later from someone else, the former mayor. Well I can give you an example. We just had a fundraiser a week ago for a young man who's sticking with cancer. He's in bad shape. Anyway, the community raised almost $50,000 for him, you know, and that's not an isolated incident.

The community raises money all the time for a lot of different causes. They really support everybody that's in need. I met several people in this small village who seem to volunteer a lot of their time. Okay, ready? Yes. So could you introduce yourself? What's your name? What do you do? My name is Catherine Drury.

I'm director for the local community museum, former War Museum. I'm also a member of the Maple Park Committee, the Garden Club, several other local organizations I take part in. I like to do a history walk every year in the community and provide information about our past. Wow, you're busy. Very busy. Do you also work or that's your job? I work part time.

I'm old enough to be retired. Congratulations. Thank you. But I find it's very difficult to make ends meet on just a limited seniors pension and CPP. It's almost impossible to pay all of your bills and then have money left over at the end of the month to buy groceries. So is that why you have a part-time job? That's why I have a part-time job. I asked Kathy why

she was so involved in causes like making the local park more accessible to walkers and wheelchairs. With seniors one of the main things is loneliness. If you stay home, you don't go out anywhere because you physically can't, then that becomes, it makes you depressed. And you have to have an outlet of some kind. So even providing for some people that don't like crowds, that don't like to be around,

they might take their dog for a walk up at Maple Park. They know there's trails up there that they can walk that are accessible. There's various areas in the community where they can go on the sidewalks. They're out, they see people. And everyone experiences that, oh, I'm having a really down day. I think maybe I'll just go outside for a little while. I can't walk, I can't go very far, but I can go and I can talk to people. And that's a huge, huge bonus. Yeah. Do you live with anybody? No. Do you know anybody? Down the road from where I was talking to Kathy is a place called spot.

It's a secondhand store in the front with clothes and teacups and VHS tapes and so many cookbooks that supports the food bank in the back. Vicki Crosman has worked at spot for 37 of its 39 years. When we started, the government asked us to open up a food bank. And we said we'd give it a go. They said it was only going to be temporary. And here we are, 37 years later, almost 40 years later now, still running a food bank, twice as busy as we used to be.

And I don't think you're ever going to see it end now. We have more food banks than ever. And when you said the government thought it would be temporary, the existence of food banks, do you know why they thought it was temporary? Well, because it was, they saw the need, but the government back then didn't want to be bothered with it. They thought if they put it out to somebody else, let them look after it. We'll give you the money to start it. Now here at Spot, I can't speak for any other food bank, but here at Spot, we have no government funding whatsoever.

We're on our own. We pay for everything. How? We pay because we have the store. The secondhand store that people are so graciously donating to on a daily basis, and without them, we wouldn't. So that money that we generate out front comes back into the food bank. Plus, we get tons of donations. The support that we get from these communities is unbelievable. I can't say enough about the community. I love this community. I've raised my children here. My kids got clothes from here. Vicki also said that it's really hard to

reach everyone in the community that might need help with food. There is still this stigma against being seen going to the food bank, especially in a town where everybody knows everybody. Another problem is there's no taxi or public transit in the region. What's the most rewarding part of this work for you? To see kids come in off a hockey team and little old pickers and say we collected food for you for the food bank and see their smiling faces and know that You know, they're helping somebody that makes it all worthwhile for me Yeah, and to see somebody come from using the food bank to not using it anymore and bringing it back Say yes, you've given it to me now

It's my turn to give back to you guys So they're donating now and We helped them maybe 20 years ago when they needed it and they're giving back now All right introduce yourself to the people who are you Robert Morgan and what do you do these days nothing? I'm assuming you're retired as little as possible. Okay. What do you do these days? Nothing. I'm assuming you retire? As little as possible. What did you do for work? I used to be what was called, what fancy name for it was a professional relocation engineer.

What is that? Truck driver. Actually you were a truck driver for how long? A little over 55 years. How long have you lived in PeddKodiak? Where you from originally? Well I was born in the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia but I don't know I've been in New Brunswick since oh I guess 69 I guess. What brought you here? Ran out of money going home and this is where I ended up and I've never got any further east. It's quiet, it's peaceful

And this is where I ended up and I never got any further East. It's quiet, it's peaceful, and they take excellent care of their streets and sidewalks, which I really love. And everything's, well, I live over here, but everything's in walking distance, everything. What's something that you would like to see, like you think like could change for the better here? More housing for the seniors. Is that a problem here? Oh yeah, it's a big time.

Big, big, big problem everywhere you go. But like the other here, you just can't get in. Anywhere. So you have to take and rent the average place, which takes care of half of my pension, right bang, gone. Some of the senior housings won't even answer my phone calls or return. My phone calls are nothing. And I'm on the New

Brunswick list but I've been over there for four years and they only just send me a little letter once a year to find if I'm still living or not. They were going to give this $250 check this spring to people from working class that earned it anything I don't know, bottom of the $250,000 a year. I didn't qualify even though I got to live on less than 20,000 dollars a year. What Robert's talking about here is the working Canadians rebate, which is from the federal government and would go to any working Canadians with an income of less than a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. There was a proposal to expand this benefit to

people with disabilities and retirees. But now the whole thing is up in the air with the election campaign underway. For the next few weeks, Kashia will be traveling across Canada as part of the Globe's East to West project. If you'd like her to visit your town, send us a note at thedecibel at globeandmale.com. That's it for today. I'm Maynica Ramon-Wilms. This episode was reported and produced by Kasha Mihailovich. It was edited and mixed by David Crosby. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you soon.