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Welcome to iPolitics’ Battleground Breakdown. Throughout the federal election campaign, we’ll be profiling 10 key ridings from across the country that could determine which party forms the next government.
Today, we travel east to explore how Liberal and Conservative fortunes in Atlantic Canada could depend on how each party fares in Fredericton-Oromocto.
Over the last two federal elections, the Liberal Party’s Atlantic Canadian shield has shown signs of cracking.
After Justin Trudeau led the party to a historic 32-seat sweep of the East Coast in 2015, the Liberals lost Atlantic ridings to the Conservatives in 2019 and 2021.
While the Maritimes have largely remained a Liberal stronghold, this shift was perhaps most felt in New Brunswick, where the Tories now hold four of the province’s 10 ridings. In that sense, Canada’s only officially bilingual province has become a bellwether for a part of the country that traditionally signals the overall electoral result.
That is why the first riding in our Battleground Breakdown series is the newly-named Fredericton-Oromocto.
Historically, if a party does well in New Brunswicks’ capital city, they generally form Canada’s next government. When Brian Mulroney first became prime minister in 1984, Fredericton voted Progressive Conservative. The city stayed blue when Mulroney was re-elected in 1988, but flipped to the Liberals when Jean Chrétien first came to power in 1993.
Fredericton sent Conservatives to Parliament Hill during the 2008 and 2011 elections, both of which were won by Stephen Harper, but it has since returned to the Liberal base during the Trudeau era.
One of the few deviations came in 2019, when Jenica Atwin became the first Green candidate from outside B.C. to win election, though she crossed the floor to join the Liberals two years later.
Atwin was re-elected under the Liberal banner in 2021, beating the Conservative candidate by 502 votes, though she has decided not to seek re-election this year, adding another element of uncertainty to a riding that swings more than a jazz drummer.
The polling aggregator 338Canada.com suggests the Liberals are “likely” to hold the riding, though the Conservatives had been favoured until a few weeks ago, when Mark Carney won the Liberal leadership.
In the leadership vote, Carney carried Fredericton-Oromocto with 86.7 per cent of the vote, though he dominated in nearly all of Canada’s 343 ridings.
For Jamie Gillies, a public policy professor at St. Thomas University, the riding will be a litmus test for how Carney’s message resonates outside of central Canaada.
“If the Liberals pick up in Atlantic Canada and hold Fredericton-Oromocto…, it may represent their best chance to form a majority government, if Carney’s message resonates beyond the region and particularly in Ontario and Quebec,” Gillies told iPolitics.
It’s also worth considering the local minutiae that could affect how the riding votes, as the seat was re-drawn in the 2022 redistribution, severing off multiple smaller communities that tend to vote Conservative.
According to Alex Kohut, a former pollster in the Prime Minister’s Office, the riding’s geographical changes make it more likely to stay red.
“Fredericton-Oromocto is a true battleground,” he said. “Under old boundaries, it was a one per cent margin in 2021, [but] new boundaries put it at Liberals plus-four.”
While the Greens could “play spoiler,” continued Kohut, it’s largely expected to be a two-horse race.
“It’s been the worst kept secret in Canada that we’re having a spring election, so why, after the writ is dropped, don’t they have a candidate in a winnable riding?”
338Canada.com Projection: Likely hold for Liberals
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Robert “Bob” Prosser still believes in the value of in-person care
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Even a global pandemic couldn’t stop the now 89-year-old family doctor from ushering patients as needed into his home-based medical office in Oromocto
His face-to-face approach is about getting to know his patients as people
It’s the way he’s done medicine for more than six decades
Bob” – as he’s affectionately known – his thousands of patients have never just been medical files
His patients are his friends – and like a good friend
Prosser has helped some of them out during difficult times
donated a fridge and even billeted patients who needed a place to go
to add he’s received as much as he’s given
“I’m going to miss my patients terribly because they’re my friends,” said Prosser
who retired Tuesday as the longest-serving doctor in New Brunswick after caring for generations of Oromocto-area families for the last 61 years
Prosser worked emergency room shifts at the Oromocto Public Hospital on top of his bustling practice
He also worked in obstetrics and provided psychotherapy to some of his patients
Prosser continued to work through two knee replacement surgeries and even the 2014 death of his wife Joyce
who was an integral part of his practice as a nurse
But the recent development of neuropathic symptoms convinced him to retire and close his home-based medical office
“I have a lot of guilt right now in leaving (my patients) without a doctor,” Prosser said in an interview on the eve of his retirement as his daughter Diana Prosser sat beside him
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“I should have looked around harder for a physician to replace me even though I don’t think I would have found one anyway because they’re a scarce commodity right now.”
Diana – who saw both her parents make sacrifices to serve the community – doesn’t think her father should feel guilty at all. She saw her father work evenings and weekends, driving to rural areas with floodlights to find patients’ homes.
“Your gift to the community has been incredible, Dad,” Diana gently told her father.
Prosser has been “a cornerstone of the Oromocto community’s health and well-being,” according to Dr. Paula Keating, president of the New Brunswick Medical Society.
“As the longest-serving physician in the province, his steadfast commitment to his profession and his patients is inspiring,” Keating said in a statement. “We appreciate Dr. Prosser’s many contributions to medicine and wish him the very best in his next chapter.”
As for the hole leaves, Horizon Health Network is continuing to work “very hard to recruit additional primary care providers to meet the needs of our population, including residents in the Oromocto area,” said Dr. Ash McLellan, the Fredericton-area medical director for the regional health authority.
“We’d like to sincerely thank Dr. Prosser for his many years of dedicated service to patients in the Oromocto area and wish him all the best in his retirement,” McLellan said in a statement Monday.
Born in India to a military family, Prosser came by his passion for medicine honestly. His father Robert Gray Prosser – a Canadian expat serving as a colonel in the British Army – was also a psychiatrist.
In 1946, the family returned to Canada and settled in New Brunswick. Prosser’s father would ultimately serve as the province’s director of mental health from 1950 to 1967.
Despite his love of forestry, Prosser, who graduated from Fredericton High School, decided to follow in his father’s footsteps and study medicine at Dalhousie University. He’d also serve in the military like this father; he was stationed for 45 months at Base Gagetown to help pay for his schooling but turned down an offer to go overseas following graduation.
Instead, Prosser and his wife Joyce decided to settle in Oromocto where they raised three children, Diana, Lisa and Scott. In their spare time, the pair volunteered in the local track and field club, Girl Guides, and “fed as many people as they could” through their expansive gardens.
At one point, Prosser kept 36 beehives on the property and spun his own honey – a commitment he juggled with a bustling medical practice, a family and his volunteer work.
“The biggest lesson I’ve learned is that if you want to live healthy and well, you gotta be part of the community,” his daughter Diana said. “You gotta give.”
Messages of gratitude have poured in over the last few weeks as current and former patients of Prosser have learned of his retirement.
In one card, a woman thanked Prosser for taking care of both her parents and her grandmother, the latter of whom suffered a “debilitating stroke.”
“You didn’t just treat their bodies,” the card reads. “You saw the whole person.”
In another card, a patient of 50 years thanked Prosser for his medical expertise and for the gift of his friendship.
Those words have meant the world to Prosser, who flipped through cards and notes in the living room with his daughter by his side. Diana is also collecting patient stories via email – storiesofdrbob@taybridge.com – on behalf of her father.
“Every patient he’s ever had he’s been able to put them at ease with some really bad jokes and some good jokes,” Diana said. “He’s a jokester.”
Over the years, Prosser has found the humour in the technological changes he’s witnessed in his career, including the advent of “Dr. Google.” He’s grown used to patients coming in with their own diagnoses after a Google search or two.
Although he’s run a solo practice for decades, Prosser supports the province’s move to team-based medical practices. He can see how it would help reduce physician burnout and ensure patients have primary care access while their doctor is on vacation.
He and his wife Joyce couldn’t get away from the practice often. At one point, Prosser had a roster of 6,000 patients.
“You’ve served the community so well,” his daughter Diana told her father as they looked through cards. “You can be so proud.”
“I was never good at the end of things,” Prosser joked.
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The province has offered no estimated reopening date for a 116-year-old covered bridge outside Fredericton that was damaged after a car struck it and flipped this week
Jacob MacDonald, a communications officer for the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure said in an email Tuesday that the Patrick Owens Covered Bridge in Rusagonis will remain closed until an investigation into the soundness of the structure is complete.
It’s been closed since the crash on Monday.
Broken wooden beams were still lying on the road inside the bridge on Wednesday.
Delbert Phillips, who has lived in the area for 67 years, walks across the bridge a few times a week to collect his mail and said he heard the crash as he was headed toward the bridge Monday.
He saw the car rolled over on its side when he got there.
“I couldn’t believe, the car right at the end of the bridge on the side, how it could really happen,” he said.
Phillips said trucks have been known to get jammed trying to squeeze through the bridge and he doesn’t believe it should be open to vehicle traffic at all anymore.
Cindy Moore says she just wants meals she can safely eat
But because she’s been complaining about what she’s being served at Oromocto Special Care Home
she’s been branded a “disrespectful” troublemaker and is worried she’ll be evicted from the facility she’s lived in for the last five years
She says she’s brought that up with staff myriad times
“They give me a menu every week of what’s being served to the home
and I circle what I can have and cross out what I can’t,” Moore said
they were having bacon chicken wraps for supper
“They brought me in a sandwich … I thought it was a salmon sandwich, (which) I can eat. But I took one bite out of it, and it was flakes of ham, which is full of salt. And the girl came back in and said, ‘You’re not eating your sandwich.’ I said, ‘I didn’t order that … it’s flakes of ham.’
“I said I was supposed to get a chicken wrap, a plain chicken wrap. Well, it turns out the kitchen didn’t send up any plain chicken. They sent up all bread and chicken.”
A couple of days later, Moore said, shake-and-bake pork chops were on the menu.
“I asked for a plain pork chop. The kitchen never sent up a plain pork chop for me … they did the shake-and-bake for everybody.”
She said she’s even bought a slow cooker so that she can sometimes make her own food, “which is not supposed to be necessary.”
Asked how she’s feeling, Moore was succinct: “Very frustrated. Very, very frustrated.”
Moore, who admitted that she recently “blew her stack” over the food she’s being served, contacted Brunswick News after it published a story about the 24-unit home, which is connected to the town’s Enhanced Living facility. The story focused on 13 violations provincial inspectors found when they visited the home last year.
At the time, Jason Lee, the home’s owner, said the violations were quickly rectified and that if the inspectors had returned the next day, they would have seen that the problems had been fixed.
Some of those violations included missing patient records, employees without records of criminal background checks or proof of required medical skills like CPR, a failure to safely store hazardous or poisonous materials, and a failure to safely store medication. Rules about reporting incidents to patients’ next of kin or legal representative were also being broken, the report read, as was an obligation to “comply with federal, provincial and municipal laws and regulations.”
Lee didn’t respond to multiple interview requests for this story.
Moore said after she lost her cool, trouble started.
“I got spoken to (and was told that a) social worker was going to be coming in to talk to me about placements (in other homes). They are throwing me out of here because I complained.”
While Moore, who has lived in Oromocto for about 20 years, is worried about being evicted, changes to provincial laws make that harder to do.
In 2023, the Nursing Homes Act was changed: a nursing home operator is required to give 30 days’ notice – instead of 15 – for discharges. Discharges can now only happen in four specific circumstances, whereas before they could happen for “any reason.”
Moore, who worked in the military for decades, knows that.
“It says … that if you raise concerns about something, they cannot throw you out because you’re raising concerns,” she said.
If she does get the boot, Moore said she’ll likely move in with her boyfriend, Bill, although she’d prefer not to because while they enjoy each other’s company, it’s also good for them to spend time apart.
And besides, Moore said, she likes living at the home – apart from the problems she’s having.
“I do family research. I do knitting in the summer. I have a garden out on my balcony. I have all kinds of things to keep me occupied, so I stay in my room.”
Despite her problems, Moore doesn’t want to leave.
“I said to Bill and one of the workers … they want to move me to another home. I said after the experience I’ve had here, they want me to go to another home, which could turn out to be just as bad or even worse. Now I know what I’m getting.”
Read the latest news releases and articles from Dominion Command of The Royal Canadian Legion
OTTAWA, ON, 1 NOVEMBER 2024 – The Royal Canadian Legion is honoured to name Mrs. Maureen Anderson of Oromocto, New Brunswick, as this year’s National Silver Cross Mother
Maureen will symbolize all Silver Cross Mothers when she places a wreath at the National War Memorial in Ottawa on Remembrance Day
“We honour Maureen and her family’s tremendous sacrifice,” says Berkley Lawrence
“Her presence comforts all Silver Cross Mothers and families
her strength gives us all strength to accept her great loss
and her story reminds us to never forget.”
were both members of the Canadian Armed Forces
Ron Anderson served on several tours of duty overseas
he jumped into action under dangerous circumstances to save the life of a child
Ryan Anderson also served on tours of duty overseas
once in Afghanistan and alongside his brother
became a different person and later passed away
Both men served with the Royal Canadian Regiment and each brother was being treated for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) before passing
Read more about Mrs
The National Silver Cross Mother acts on behalf of all Canadian mothers and families who have lost a son or daughter in the line of service
Anderson will be part of several events honouring Canada’s fallen
The Memorial Cross - more commonly referred to as the Silver Cross - was introduced on December 1
It is a symbol of personal loss and sacrifice on behalf of widows and mothers who lose a child on active duty
or whose death is later attributed to such duty
The Royal Canadian Legion receives nominations for the National Silver Cross Mother role from Provincial Commands and individual Canadians each year
The final recipient is chosen by a Dominion Command selection committee
the Legion is Canada’s largest Veteran support and community service organization
We are a non-profit organization with a national reach across Canada as well as branches in the U.S.
many of whom volunteer an extraordinary amount of time to their branches
Public Relations / Media Inquiries: PublicRelations@Legion.ca/ Nujma Bond 343-540-7604
— A 52-year-old Oromocto First Nation man was arrested after a child luring incident involving a person under 16 in the community last Friday
Oromocto RCMP received a child luring report at around 4 p.m
police determined the man had been in contact with a youth by means of telecommunications with the intent of committing sexual interference
officers found the man with the youth and arrested him at the scene
He was later released with strict conditions and will appear in Fredericton provincial court at a later date
officers found and seized digital evidence
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An Oromocto hockey star has joined Team Canada for the International Ice Hockey Federation’s Under-18 Women’s World Championships in Finland
Forward Ava Wood is suiting up for the national U18 women’s squad at the event
She has two assists in as many games so far after recording a helper in Canada’s 6-2 triumph over Team Slovakia Saturday night to open the tournament
also picked up an assist in Canada’s 5-1 victory Sunday over Team Switzerland
Wood skated with the Rothesay Netherwood Riverhawks prep school program for two seasons
She also starred with the Ontario Women’s Hockey Association’s Oakville Hornets last season
17) in 22 games with the OWHL’s Etobicoke Dolphins this year
She previously played with Team Atlantic at the 2023 national women’s U18 event and with Team New Brunswick at the 2023 Canada Winter Games
Wood and Team Canada will be back in action Tuesday for a 2:30 p.m
The bronze-medal game and championship contest are slated for Sunday
All game times listed are in the Atlantic time zone
Winger Bradly Nadeau of Saint-François-de-Madawaska and his teammates on Canada’s national junior squad were eliminated from the IIHF’s 2025 World Junior Hockey Championships with a 4-3 loss to the Czechs in the quarterfinal Jan
had two goals in five games as Canada had another disappointing finish at the World Juniors
The setback marked Canada’s second consecutive quarterfinal loss to the Czechs and first time placing fifth in back-to-back tournaments in more than four decades
Nadeau, 19, was Canada’s only two-goal scorer at the World Juniors. He has 16 points (seven, nine) in 23 games with the American Hockey League’s Chicago Wolves this year. The five-foot-11, 172-pound skater dressed for one game with the Hurricanes last year and had 46 points (19, 27) in 36 games with the University of Maine Black Bears, an NCAA program.
Nadeau had a stellar two-year career with the British Columbia Hockey League’s Penticton Vees, logging 159 points (65, 94) in 103 games while adding 59 points (28, 31) in 34 playoff games.
Other New Brunswick connections to the World Juniors included Saint John’s Pat McLaughlin, Hockey Canada’s chief operating officer and executive vice-president of strategy. Moncton Wildcats forward Julius Sumpf suited up for Team Germany at the tournament and had seven points (two, five) in five games.
Saint John Sea Dogs star Eriks Mateiko was also a key player for Team Latvia. He scored the shootout winner in Latvia’s 3-2 upset over Canada in the preliminary round.
Juraj Pekarcik of the Wildcats competed for Team Slovakia at the World Juniors, accumulating seven points (three, four) in five games.
In Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League play, the Wildcats picked up where they left off before the Christmas break and extended their winning streak to seven games.
Moncton (28-5-2) moved into the league’s top spot with a 7-2 triumph over the Sea Dogs (16-20) Dec. 28 at the Avenir Centre, followed by a 6-3 win over the Charlottetown Islanders (14-19-3) Dec. 29 at the Eastlink Centre and a 5-1 victory over the Islanders on New Year’s Eve in the Hub City.
The Wildcats rang in 2025 by beating the Halifax Mooseheads (11-19-5) 3-0 Jan. 3 in Moncton and 5-1 Sunday at the Scotiabank Centre.
Meanwhile, the Sea Dogs fell 5-2 to the Acadie-Bathurst Titan (20-13-2) Dec. 31 at the K.C. Irving Regional Centre and dropped a 6-3 decision to the Islanders Jan. 3 in Charlottetown. Saint John also lost 5-1 to Charlottetown Jan. 3 on the road.
The Titan suffered a 5-1 setback Jan. 4 at the hands of the Cape Breton Eagles (18-14-4).
Bathurst will host Charlottetown Wednesday at 7 p.m. and Saint John will entertain the Drummondville Voltigeurs (25-7-4) at 7 p.m. at TD Station. The Wildcats will take on the Gatineau Olympiques (9-20-8) Thursday at 8 p.m. and visit the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies (19-9-7) Saturday at 5 p.m.
The Titan and Rimouski Océanic (24-10-1) will do battle Saturday at 7 p.m. at the K.C. Irving Regional Centre. The Sea Dogs will be in Halifax for a 7 p.m. showdown before hosting the Mooseheads Jan. 12 in a 3 p.m. matinee. Moncton will visit the Val d’Or Foreurs (12-18-4) Jan. 12 at 4 p.m.
For the first time this season, the Maritime Junior Hockey League’s Edmundston Blizzard have lost consecutive games.
The Blizzard (27-5-2) were edged 4-3 by the West Kent Steamers (21-9-3) Jan. 3 in Bouctouche before falling 5-2 to the Amherst Ramblers (19-9-2) the next day at the Amherst Stadium.
Meanwhile, the defending champ Miramichi Timberwolves (17-11-3) dropped a 5-4 decision to the Campbellton Tigers (18-10-5) Jan. 3 on the road and beat the Grand Falls Rapids (9-17-6) 5-3 the next day at home.
Grand Falls defeated the Fredericton Red Wings (7-22-2) 7-5 Jan. 3 at home. Campbellton toppled Fredericton 4-3 Jan. 4 on home ice, and the Steamers suffered a 3-1 setback against the Truro Bearcats (16-15-1).
The Red Wings and Timberwolves will face off Wednesday at 7 p.m. in Miramichi. The Rapids and Pictou County Weeks Crushers (13-14-4) will hit the ice Thursday at 7 p.m. in New Glasgow, N.S., and Edmundston will host Campbellton at 7:30 p.m.
The Rapids and Bearcats will meet Friday at 7 p.m., Fredericton will take on Campbellton at 7 p.m., and Miramichi will be at the J.K. Irving Centre for a 7:30 p.m. matchup with the Steamers. The Timberwolves and Blizzard will renew acquaintances Saturday at 7 p.m.
In other MHL play, the Tigers and Ramblers will do battle Jan. 12 at 2 p.m. in Amherst, the Rapids will be in Fredericton for a 2 p.m. puck drop, and the Blizzard and Steamers will face off at 4 p.m. in Bouctouche.
A teenage Oromocto hockey star is back home after striking gold on the world stage
helped Canada win gold Sunday at the IIHF Under-18 Women’s World Championship in Vantaa
The Canadian squad blanked the United States 3-0 in the gold medal game
She was the lone New Brunswicker on Team Canada
and the only player selected from Team Atlantic
which finished seventh at the 2024 Canadian championships in Quispamsis
Team Canada returned home from Finland on Monday night
and Wood is still processing the fact she’s a world champion
it’s incredible,” Wood said in an interview
Wood proved herself as a playmaker during those six games, with five assists, good for tenth in the tournament. She was also spot-on in the faceoff circle during the championship, finishing third in faceoff percentage, winning 68.75 per cent of the draws she took. Only teammates Sara Manness (73.28 per cent), and Maddie McCullough (74.55 per cent) were ahead of her.
After going undefeated in group play by besting Slovakia, 6-2, Switzerland, 5-1, and Czechia, 5-0, Canada routed Japan 17-0 in the quarterfinals where Wood finished with three assists.
She gave credit to her teammates and to good advice on the draw from her father, Art Wood.
“My dad always told me to bend my knees, so I try to do that a lot,” she said.
In the semifinals, Canada won a rematch with Czechia 4-2 before going on to defeat the U.S. in the gold medal game.
Wood said lifting the trophy was the coolest thing she’s ever done.
While she celebrated with her teammates, she also got to take in the victory with her family who travelled across the ocean to see her play, including her parents Art and Tanya, her siblings Gage and Brooklyn, and Seamus Hogan (Brooklyn’s fiancé).
“Those people mean the most to me,” she said. “I was just so honoured to be able to share that experience with them.”
Previously, Wood played hockey at Rothesay Netherwood School for two seasons, and played for the Oakville Hornets in the Ontario Women’s Hockey Association. This year, she’s been playing for the Etobicoke Dolphins in the OWHL.
Her father is the head coach for Oromocto High School’s boys’ hockey team. He said playing for her country has been a dream of Ava’s since she was four.
Art Wood said Ava grew up watching a lot of hockey, and spent plenty of time at the rink, both playing and watching her dad coach.
“It was really neat to see her come out onto the ice that first time,” said Art Wood. “To see her come out of that tunnel with that jersey on, see her look up into the crowd at us just brought a tear to my eye and my wife’s eye.”
As the lone New Brunswicker and Atlantic Canadian on the team, Wood said she received a lot of messages of support from across the Maritimes, including from old coaches and teachers.
“I’m so blessed that I’ve gotten to grow up in such a great community, and it was special to represent Atlanta Canada on the world stage,” she said.
CanadaNew Brunswick woman who lost two sons to PTSD named national Silver Cross MotherBy The Canadian PressPublished: November 01, 2024 at 6:30AM EDT
Maureen Anderson lost both her sons to their overseas service in the Canadian Army, even if they died years later and a continent away from the hot dust and violence of the Afghanistan war.
Growing up, Ron Anderson was more serious, “a little fighter,” his mother recalls. His younger brother Ryan was quieter, softer. Both joined the military before they finished high school, already certain of what their career paths would be.
“My boys were very kind to me, and I miss them terribly,” Anderson said in an interview this week from her home in Oromocto, N.B.
Sgt. Ron Anderson, a father of four, died by suicide in 2014 at the age of 39. Ryan, also a sergeant and a father of two, died in 2017 at 38. Anderson doesn’t like to discuss specifics of how they died, but she attributes both deaths to the post-traumatic stress disorder they suffered as a result of their extensive overseas military service, including in Afghanistan.
Anderson, 78, will be travelling to Ottawa to lay a wreath at the national Remembrance Day ceremony on Nov. 11 as this year's national Silver Cross Mother. The silver cross, also known as the memorial cross, is awarded to mothers or widows of Canadian soldiers who died on active duty or as a result of it.
Anderson said its “a little overwhelming,” but that she is honoured to have been picked by the Royal Canadian Legion.
Despite having lost her only two children, she says she has never wished they opted for different careers. In some ways, a military life seemed almost inevitable for both of them.
Anderson herself is the daughter of a Canadian Second World War veteran. Her late husband, Peter, was a soldier, serving with the Regiment of Canadian Guards on Parliament Hill and then the Royal Canadian Regiment. Maureen herself served briefly with the Air Force as a nurse in Ottawa.
She said Ron decided early on to follow in his father’s footsteps.
“That was his life and he loved it,” she said, adding Ryan wasn’t far behind.
Ron became a valued Army member, serving in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo before completing two tours of duty in Afghanistan. But after coming home from his second stint there in 2007, his mother said, he changed – becoming distant and short-tempered. “He just wasn’t the same," she said.
After Ron died, she learned he had received an award in Fredericton after jumping out of a vehicle to administer first aid to a young boy on a roadside in Afghanistan, despite danger around him. Not wanting to be fussed over, Ron never told anyone. “That was his way, but we were devastated when we got the certificate, thinking we could have been there," Anderson said.
Ryan, she said, started to go “really downhill” after his brother’s death. His marriage suffered and he became isolated, sad and withdrawn. He had served in Afghanistan alongside his brother, as well as on several other overseas deployments, including in Bosnia, Ethiopia and Haiti.
A July 2007 article from Afghanistan in the National Post detailed the dangers the brothers faced when a string of bombs struck their convoy as it headed to Kandahar province to lend support to Afghan police.
Don Martin's article described Ron Anderson witnessing a suicide bomber detonate and Ryan riding in a vehicle that hit an improvised explosive device, all only days after six of their fellow Canadian soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb.
Since her sons’ diagnoses, Anderson has publicly called for better treatment for veterans with PTSD. She questions whether Ryan was on too many medications, and wonders if veterans might need more talk, check-ins and specialist doctors. In the end, though, she doesn’t have the answers.
“I don't know how much they're doing for the soldiers,” she said. “I really don't know, but maybe they're not doing enough.”
She does feel that more people are willing to talk openly about PTSD than in the past, and hopes to use her time as Silver Cross Mother to ensure that keeps happening.
Anderson, who is retired, says she keeps her sons’ memories alive by looking daily at their photos and remembering the good times. She also has six grandchildren, including one of Ron’s sons who has joined the military, and several great-grandchildren.
She keeps herself busy seeing friends and volunteering in her community, including helping with the annual Remembrance Day poppy campaign. And while her prominent position in this year’s national Nov. 11 commemoration ceremony will be something new, she says she's always attended local Remembrance Day events, no matter where her family was stationed.
“I never missed one, whether it was rain, sleet, snow or whatever,” she said. “So that was just part of Nov. 11th for me, always.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 1, 2024.
Police have charged a 30-year-old man after an attempted bank robbery in Oromocto
West District RCMP said a man entered a bank on Onondaga Street and demanded money at around 2:15 p.m
The man told staff that he had a firearm in his backpack
Officers arrived at the scene and arrested the man without incident
Police said the man did not get any money and his backpack and a pellet gun were seized
appeared in Fredericton provincial court to face charges of attempted robbery
possession of a weapon for the purpose of committing an offence
carrying a concealed weapon and breach of probation
He was remanded into custody and is scheduled to return to court on Sept
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