You don’t need your voter information card from Elections Canada to vote in the April 28 federal election. (Elections Canada)
If you haven’t received your voter information card yet for the April 28 federal election, Elections Canada says not to worry.
You can still vote without it.
Elections Canada told QCCR there have been delays in getting the cards to some parts of the country.
The Liverpool post office hadn’t begun receiving the cards for its customers until the middle of this week.
The cards contain information on where and when you can vote, details about your polling station and your name and address.
Elections Canada spokeswoman Francoise Enguehard says you don’t need the voter information card to cast your ballot.
“What is important for people to know is that you do not need a voter information card to vote,” she said in an interview. “And you don’t need it either to verify where you have to vote.
“The voter information card can serve as one ID to vote. But it doesn’t really change the way people have to prove their identity and they have to prove their address. So if people have a driver’s licence or they have a municipal or provincial ID, as civil servants would, then they can use that. And it you don’t have it, you need two things both with your name and one that proves your address.”
To prove your civic address, you can also use a property tax bill, a statement from your house or tenant insurance or a utility bill that contains your physical address.
You can also have somebody else vouch for your identity at your polling station.
“It’s the honors system. You say you are who you are and where you live. But the person must be registered at the same polling station and and the person can only vouch for one individual.”
Enguehard said she doesn’t know the reason for the delay in Liverpool.
“We send 28 million cards to electors all across the country. Sometimes it can happen that there is a delay in getting a polling location. So until you have the polling location, you cannot print the voter information card. Sometimes out of the 28 million, a few of the cards, the information is incorrect and new voter information cards have to be issued. So all of that can cause delays.”
She said those who haven’t yet received a voter information card should be getting one in the next few days.
Regardless, you can use the “My voter information” section on the Elections Canada homepage at elections.ca or call 1-800-463-6868 to make sure you’re registered to vote.
The South Queens Chamber of Commerce is organizing a meet-and-greet in Liverpool with candidates in South Shore-St. Margarets. (Elections Canada)
Voters in Queens County will get a chance to meet some of the candidates vying to be the next MP for South Shore-St. Margarets.
The South Queens Chamber of Commerce and Main and Mersey Dining Room and Coffee Bar in Liverpool are teaming up for a candidate Q&A on Mon., April 21 from 4 to 6 p.m.
Ashley Christian is president of the chamber of commerce.
“The idea is a casual meet-and-greet forum,” Christian said. “What we’re going to be doing is casual networking and then allowing each of the candidates five to 10 minutes to introduce themselves to the group and then we intend to take questions from the floor. So we expect one hour of a more formal question-and-answer period and then another hour of just casual networking.”
Christian said she expects three of the five candidates to be at the event: Liberal Jessica Fancy-Landry, the Green Party’s Mark Embrett and Patrick Boyd of the People’s Party of Canada.
Conservative Rick Perkins, who is running for re-election, could not make it.
Christian did not know whether Independent candidate Hayden Henderson will be at the event. Henderson is the outreach director for the youth wing of the NDP. He was a last-minute addition to the ballot after the NDP’s Brendan Mosher dropped out and has since been endorsed by the NDP.
“We really wanted to give the citizens of Queens County an opportunity to meet everyone, hear their platforms, hear what’s important to them and ask them questions,” Christian said.
Rick Perkins, Jessica Fancy-Landry, Mark Embrett and Patrick Boyd are four of the candidates running in South Shore-St. Margarets. Not pictured is Hayden Henderson.
Four people will be trying to unseat Rick Perkins as the South Shore-St. Margarets representative in the April 28 federal election.
Perkins beat Liberal MP Bernadette Jordan in 2021, after running unsuccessfully against her in 2019.
Since the last election, the riding has been redrawn, with part of it being absorbed into Halifax West. Nominations closed on Monday.
Liberal Jessica Fancy-Landry will be trying to take the seat back from Perkins. The teacher at Forest Heights Community School in Chester Basin is originally from Caledonia and lives in Bridgewater.
Green Party candidate Mark Embrett is an implementation scientist with Nova Scotia Health and lives in Hubbards.
Patrick Boyd is running for the People’s Party of Canada. He runs a consulting firm.
The NDP don’t have a registered candidate in the riding. Their declared candidate Brendan Mosher dropped out at the last minute. According to a Facebook post on his candidate page on Tuesday, he said that he decided against running “after a long consideration and some last minute delays.”
He edited the post to say that Hayden Henderson would be running for the party in the riding.
Henderson is listed on the Elections Canada website as an Independent. According to the federal agency, “if an endorsement by a political party cannot be confirmed within 48 hours of the prospective candidate submitting their nomination paper, … the word ‘Independent’ (will) appear under their name on the ballot.”
Perkins won South Shore-St. Margarets in 2021 by about 2,000 votes, or 40 per cent. Jordan got 37 per cent, while the NDP’s Olivia Dorey captured 19 per cent.
QCCR plans to publish interviews with all candidates.
Region of Queens Mayor Scott Christian says council will begin budget talks later this month. (Rick Conrad)
The Region of Queens still hasn’t begun its 2025/26 budget deliberations.
Mayor Scott Christian said this week the process will likely begin in the third week of April.
“Some time in the last two weeks of April and we will be notifying the public of that as soon as possible,” he told QCCR after Tuesday’s council meeting.
“Unexpected delays on the staff side preparing the numbers to get the starting point for the budget deliberation process in terms of understanding the lift (from increased property assessments) and our known operating and capital expenses.”
Budget deliberations were also delayed last year by the previous council. They began those talks in early April and finished by the end of the month.
This year, though, councillors will have even less time. Christian acknowledged that when the process does begin, it will be “expedited”.
“We’re right up against it. Tax bills need to come out in June, so it basically needs to be approved by the first council meeting in May to get our ducks in a row to have the tax bills (ready). That’s not ideal. It’s a point of frustration. We want to make it as engaging, transparent as possible. And we also want it to be a thoughtful, deliberate, intentional, patient approach. And unfortunately, we’re just not going to be in a position for the budget deliberations to be in that ideal state.”
He and Deputy Mayor Maddie Charlton are away next week at a conference. He said that budget talks will begin the week after that.
Sherman Nunes of Liverpool watches on Saturday as his kids Luke and Lisa play in the new children’s area of the Thomas H. Raddall Library. (Rick Conrad)
The Thomas H. Raddall Library officially opened its doors on Saturday, as about 70 people helped usher in a new chapter for the Liverpool branch.
The library has been open for about six weeks in its new interim home at 54 Harley Umphrey Dr. People were impressed with the new digs, with some hoping the library stays where it is, with others wishing for a permanent location closer to downtown.
The event on Saturday featured local and provincial politicians, as well as many library staff.
The Region of Queens budgeted up to $1.26 million on renovations to the space in the municipally owned Liverpool Business Development Centre off White Point Road. The library had to leave the Rossignol Cultural Centre in downtown Liverpool by Dec. 31 because the building’s owner Sherman Hines was selling the building.
Tom Raddall and his family have allowed South Shore Public Libraries to continue to use the famed Nova Scotia author’s name on the Liverpool branch for another five years.
Raddall said he’s happy the library is in a better, newer space.
“Hopefully, it’s a step in the right direction,” he told QCCR. “Certainly it’s in a far better space than it was before. The location has been a controversial one over the years. But this library needed to be in a newer spot and this will suit the purpose until another one is built in the appropriate location.”
Many residents were concerned that the new location isn’t easy to walk to, with no sidewalks and limited lighting.
Region of Queens Mayor Scott Christian said that he’s excited about the new space, with its expanded program rooms, commercial kitchen and children’s section.
“The plans are to make this space as great as we can make it. And we need to, as a community and as a council, figure out what makes sense in terms of either bringing a future library closer to town or bringing town closer to this library
Christian said it’s too early to say what the future holds for a more permanent location. But he said the region has to work out its priorities for the next few years, and address whether Liverpool needs a new, multipurpose community centre which could include meeting space, a gymnasium and the library.
“I think the focus right now, both for the folks at South Shore (Public) Libraries and also for the Region of Queens staff and the work that they’ve done to make the built environment really work, is to figure out how, for now, to make this the best space that we can make it.
“And the space is great in there, so it’s what do we need to do with the surrounding environment to remove barriers, … make sure that users who want to be accessing the space are provided that opportunity.”
Queens MLA Kim Masland said she would support a request for provincial funding for a new space for the library. But she said Saturday that she was impressed with its interim location.
“I think today we see as many people that are here, lots of smiling faces, lots of people really excited about this. This is also an interim facility here for now and so hopefully we’ll see a new library built in town, that would certainly be my wish someday. But we’re here for now and this is certainly a great interim facility.”
Lin Ireland of Liverpool was one of the many local library lovers taking it all in on Saturday.
“I think this is great,” she said. “It’s going to be used. And people complain about the location but I don’t think it’s all that far out. … I’m happy with it right where it is. A lot of money went into building this and why not leave it here?”
Susan McGibbon of Liverpool said her gardening club had their first meeting in the new branch a couple of weeks ago, and turnout was double their usual attendance. While she likes the new larger, brighter space, she hopes the region can build a new space in a more central location.
“I don’t think there was another option, and I think they’ve done a good job making it a good option,” McGibbon said.
“Do I think we need another location that’s part of a community hub? Yes, absolutely. And I think a new library committee getting struck is going to happen very soon, so that work can get going.”
Sherman Nunes of Liverpool was at the library on Saturday with his four-year-old Lisa and his two-year-old Luke, as they played in the new children’s area.
“It’s beautiful, it’s spacious, it has a lot of light. I’ve been to the previous library. This is a step up. It’s very nice.
“We like to take the kids out, and previously we did not have an indoor space around here in Liverpool, where we could take them out for a day or something, so we had to drive up to Bridgewater. But I think with this new addition, it would be nice to get them over here every weekend, especially so that they can run around, read some books, play with the toys. As you can see, they’re already occupied.”
The Thomas H. Raddall Library is open six days a week and closed on Mondays. Queens County Transit offers free rides to and from the library. That service runs every Thursday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. from the market shelter beside Hell Bay Brewing.
The Astor Theatre is the oldest performing arts space in Nova Scotia. (File photo by Ed Halverson)
UPDATED APRIL 3, 3:15 P.M.
The Astor Theatre in Liverpool has secured $500,000 in funding from the J&W Murphy Foundation.
The five-year commitment will give the Astor $100,000 each year to help beef up its programs and promotion.
Lynn Cochrane, vice-chair of the Astor Theatre Society, told QCCR that it’s a game changer for Nova Scotia’s oldest performing arts theatre.
“It is significant. It’s huge. This is the largest donation the theatre has ever received,” she said.
“We’re thrilled. It will be life-changing for the theatre.”
Cochrane said the board began discussions with the J&W Murphy Foundation about a year ago on a plan to make the Astor sustainable.
“So the Murphy foundation is giving us an opportunity to set ourselves up for future success.”
The J&W Murphy Foundation was established in 2008 by the late Janet and Dr. William Murphy, longtime Liverpool residents. Dr. Murphy co-founded the thriving Mersey Seafoods in 1964.
The foundation contributes to a wide variety of charitable causes, especially in Queens County.
Lisa Murphy, chair of the foundation, told QCCR that she views the donation as an investment in a cherished centrepiece of the community.
“The Astor has always meant a lot both to the town and to our family. Our mom was a huge supporter of the arts,” she said.
“If what we have done is perceived as a vote of confidence, then we’re also happy about that, because it’s intended to be. … We’re thrilled to be privileged enough to be able to extend this funding that can help settle some of the swirling concerns that an organization such as the Astor has struggled with over the years and to enable them to build on that to secure their future. I can’t think of Liverpool without the Astor. I cannot imagine the town without the Astor.”
Murphy says she hopes the foundation’s contribution will help the Astor secure funding from other donors, and to help the theatre cover operating expenses. But she says it’s up to the board to decide where it will do the most good.
“Our grant is specifically to say, free up your resources to think bigger.
“There’s no wishlist. We speak about a vote of confidence, we are saying that we’re trusting the leadership of this organization to make responsible decisions about what it wants to do with it. And they are in the best position to set the direction of the society. … That’s not for us to say.”
In the first year of the five-year commitment, Cochrane says the board will work on improving its fundraising, including creating a donor database. It will also create a cohesive marketing plan to help grow the Astor’s audience and its revenue.
That will include a new website. Cochrane says the board is in talks now with professionals in corporate fundraising and marketing and communications.
And they’ll work on getting the community more involved in their programming, asking people what kinds of shows they’d like to see.
The theatre’s board also plans to expand the Astor Academy in the second year of the funding, to bring in outside theatre professionals to give more training to youth and seniors.
“The Astor, like all arts centres, operates on one-third of its revenues from (government) grants, the other third is from revenues actually generated from concerts, events, and the other third is from donations,” Cochrane said.
“We really want to shore up the donation side. We come to the end of the year and we tend to be hand to mouth.”
Cochrane said people will likely start to see the results of the Murphy family’s investment in the fall.
“The board is thrilled. It’s a very generous donation at a time that the theatre is really going to have an opportunity to benefit from it, and hopefully make it live on for another 100 years.”
The Astor Theatre opened in 1902 and was originally known as the Liverpool Opera House. It hosted local and touring shows until silent films were introduced in 1917. Many Canadian and international artists have performed at the theatre over the years, including the Royal Shakespeare Company, Rufus Wainwright, and even Mr. Dressup.
RCMP have charged a 60-year-old Mill Village man with attempted murder.
Queens District RCMP were called to a house on Hwy. 3 in Mill Village on March 28 at about 3:30 a.m.
Officers and ambulance personnel found an 84-year-old man with life-threatening injuries after being stabbed.
Another man had fled the scene before police arrived, according to an RCMP news release late Wednesday afternoon.
Both men knew each other, and no one else was in the home at the time of the assault.
Police arrested a suspect at a home in Voglers Cove at 7:45 p.m.
Derek Dominix, 60, has been charged with attempted murder and taken into custody. He’s scheduled to appear in Bridgewater provincial court on April 10 at 9:30 a.m.
Eric and Dawn Fry are hoping to build 16 apartments in the old Stedmans building on Main Street in Liverpool. (Rick Conrad)
A developer is hoping to turn an old storefront on Liverpool’s Main Street into apartments.
Eric and Dawn Fry of Fall River bought 194 Main St. in January and hope to turn it into 16 one-bedroom and two-bedroom rental units.
Eric Fry told QCCR that they applied a few weeks ago to the Region of Queens to allow for apartments on the ground floor. The region’s land use bylaws permit residential units on Main Street only in buildings with a commercial storefront.
“We would rather see it as 100 per cent residential because there’s more of a need in that area for residential than for additional commercial space because there’s a fair amount of vacant commercial space on Main Street.”
The property is known locally as the old Stedmans building. Before it was bought by the Frys, it sat vacant for a few years and was heavily damaged by extreme weather. And before that, it housed a dollar store and office space on the ground floor.
Fry said Tuesday that they’re also planning indoor parking, which would be accessed on the Water Street side at the back of the building.
“We’re hoping that there won’t be any or too much opposition to what we’re trying to do because we know that there’s a need for housing there and I think this would lend itself nicely. … So it could be a pretty desirable development when it’s completed.”
Tenants recently moved into the couple’s other development, The Falls in Milton, located on the Mersey River. That building is full and targeted to people 55 and over.
This new development would be marketed to a more mixed demographic. Fry says he hopes to attract health care or other professionals. And two or three units could qualify as affordable housing.
According to Viewpoint, the 30,000-square-foot building sold for $235,000 after almost a year on the market. Fry said it’s too early to estimate the budget for the project or what the rents will be.
“The two criteria that I typically use are location and potential. And I think that’s got both in spades. It’s very central and a lot of potential. It took a little creativity with our design team and our construction manager to work through a feasible plan, in order to make it all accessible. We’ll be adding windows and skylights for the upper units. We think it’s really going to begin to transform Main Street, so we’re excited about it.”
They’re working with a partner on the project and have named their company SDL Developments, as an homage to the building’s former life as a Stedmans department store.
While they wait to see how their application goes with the municipality, Fry said workers have been cleaning up debris inside the building.
He said he and his wife wanted to invest in the community after they bought a cottage in Port Mouton in 2015 and fell in love with the area.
“We’re not trying to disrupt anything or upset the apple cart. My wife and I have lots of great relationships in Liverpool and we’ve gotten to know a lot of folks in the municipality and we love it. What we’ve done with The Falls in Milton would be frankly representative of the type of approach we would take, very open and communicative with the public and a quality product that people can be proud to call home.”
Fry said that if their application with the municipality succeeds, they hope to begin construction by the end of June.
Justin Freeman launched Letterswitch Publishing on Saturday in Liverpool. (Rick Conrad)
In a town without a bookstore, starting a publishing business might seem like a leap of faith.
But Justin Freeman of Liverpool says he’s realizing a childhood dream by launching Letterswitch Publishing.
“I’m content to just put out beautiful books that entertain and educate and encourage new parents, and parents of young kids especially, but everybody in a family,” he told QCCR.
“I hope it goes off well. Publishing is not exactly the most robust industry to be jumping into feet first at the moment, but I’m hoping with kind of the niche aspect of it and keeping things small and focused that it’ll be a success.”
Freeman unveiled his micropublishing company on Saturday at the Astor Theatre in Liverpool. The stay-at-home Dad moved to the area a few years ago with his young family.
“(We) moved to Liverpool in 2022 after my son was born. My wife got a job at the hospital … and this is home now. We’re putting down roots and are looking forward to a lot of years here.”
Freeman says he’ll be concentrating at first on publishing his own work through Letterswitch.
His first book was on display on Saturday. Called A Little Grieving, he partnered with a pediatric crisis counsellor on the parent’s guide to helping your child through the grieving process.
He also plans a kids’ picture book called One Veggie, a middle-grade chapter book called Molly Moss Runs for Office and a western novel called Crimson Shadow.
“It’ll be a slow rollout. I’m a stay-at-home dad and I’ll just try to get things rolling here in the next couple years. But once both kids are in school, I look to open up to other authors and just get a nice catalog of titles.”
Freeman grew up on a farm in Missouri. He had an eclectic career before moving to Nova Scotia with his wife, Dr. Alison Freeman, and their kids Molly and James.
“I was formerly a police officer in Missouri in the city of Springfield. I was also a minister for a few years, and sold shoes and grew up on a farm and just have a varied background that kind of informs and inflects different writing. Thus all the different type of books that are coming out.”
The name of the company comes from how he met his wife, when he was still on the farm in Missouri and she was at home in Nova Scotia.
“Essentially, back in 2000, I was on the family farm using ICQ, a messaging app, and this message pops up saying, ‘Do you want to catch up?’ It was obviously a misdirect, but I went to reject it and something told me to accept it, so I did. And it was somebody looking for somebody named Justin Freeman that they had met in Massachusetts. And instead of typing MA for Massachusetts, they typed MO.
“And we struck up more conversations, postcards from abroad, kept up over the years, and then 15 years later, wound up meeting finally, fell in love. I’m now married to Alison and we have two beautiful kids. And so the letter switch is an homage to that switched letter that started our entire story.”
For the launch event, Freeman teamed up with local artisans to feature some of their work, including local baker Gabby’s Bread Basket, who catered the event, and the Covey Candle Company, who created a couple of limited-edition scents.
“And there’s also a piece that I commissioned by local artist Katie Kripp called Bound for Novel Passages. And it’s a sailing ship with books for the sails and it just represents a new journey for me and some other creatives I look to work with. I find myself surrounded by creative people here in Liverpool and I wanted to work with a few of them for the launch.”
People at the Letterswitch launch, like Jaqueline Duck of Liverpool, said it was exciting to have a publisher in the area.
“I think that’s amazing because there are writers here and they have to go and find a publisher. If we have one in Liverpool, it makes everybody’s life that much easier. And it’s good business.”
Freeman says that while he’ll be busy for the next few months on his own work, he’d still like to hear from people interested in his new venture.
Members of the Greater Molega Lake Lot Owners Association want changes to a proposed private road levy bylaw. (Rick Conrad)
A property owners group in Queens County’s growing cottage country hopes regional council can pass a new bylaw by the fall that would make it easier to collect fees to maintain private roads.
Representatives from the Greater Molega Lake Lot Owners Association appealed to councillors at their regular meeting on Tuesday to make a few changes to the region’s proposed bylaw on private road maintenance charges.
The bylaw has been in the works since 2019.
More than 5,700 properties in Queens County are connected to roads that aren’t maintained by the municipality or the province. Most of these roads are in the areas of Molega, Ponhook and Annis lakes.
The association invoices property owners an annual fee for that maintenance, using manually generated lists. It charges property owners annual fees of $408.25 for developed land and $149.50 for vacant land. Those amounts include HST.
Under the new bylaw, the region would collect the fees on annual municipal tax bills, and then remit those to the association.
Dwayne Primeau is president of the Molega lot owners group.
“Optimistically, when this bylaw has passed and hopefully when we adopt it, what will happen is the region will issue a tax invoice that includes a road maintenance levy. And that would essentially be the same fee that is collected at one time and then remitted from the Region of Queens to the association to support us in delivering the service to the citizens. ”
The group represents 1,233 property owners, covering more than 1,200 hectares or 3,000 acres. It’s the largest recreational development in Atlantic Canada. Many people now live in the area full-time.
The association is responsible for maintaining 52 kilometres of roadway, including 10 km of provincially owned K class roads, 13 boat launches and three bridges.
But treasurer Bruce MacInnis told councillors that about 20 per cent of land owners don’t pay their fees.
“And it is quite an expensive process because we’re duplicating effectively what they do here (at the region),” he said in an interview after the meeting.
“There’s a lot of people we just have difficulty finding because we have to maintain mailing lists and the information’s not always easy to find. So that takes a lot of time as well. And we’re volunteers.”
As part of the proposed bylaw, the region would keep about five per cent of the fees they collect to pay for administrative costs. The association estimates that would cut about $15,000 from what it gets from the levy. It wants that lowered to two to three per cent.
The group said a lower percentage would allow it to hire a manager to oversee its work in maintaining the private roads.
The bylaw would also require agreements with lot owners associations to be renewed every year. The group wants that changed to every five years, with renewal based on meeting certain criteria.
Primeau said after the meeting that he’s cautiously optimistic the bylaw will be adopted before the group begins sending out invoices in November.
“The message we’re trying to relate today is that our members and our board are are in support of and in need of this assistance to continue to maintain and manage the infrastructure, supporting this growing part of the region.
“We would really love to see this be in place and ready for us to adopt prior to November of 2025, which is when we typically would follow our manual process to invoice for the coming year’s fees.”
Councillors had suspended first reading of the bylaw in January so that they could become more familiar with it. It’s unknown when council will bring it back.
