Mi'kmaw Summer Games and Swim The Canal End Two-Year Pause

RICHMOND COUNTY - Two summer events that underwent a two-year pandemic freeze but are now getting ready to re-launch in Richmond County take center stage on this week's edition of TELILE 24/7. 

The show begins at 1:25 with an interview with the head coordinator for this summer's Mi'kmaw Summer Games, Potlotek First Nation's Isaiah Bernard. Excited to oversee the games in his home community, Bernard is also grateful for two local municipalities that are sharing their facilities and equipment for the 2022 games - Richmond County, which is providing East Richmond Education Centre in nearby St. Peter's for basketball tournaments, and Port Hawkesbury, which is offering the Strait Area Pool at the SAERC high school site for aquatic events on July 17 and 18. 

The scene shifts to Ottawa at 11:32, as Isle Madame-born Cali Kehoe - now working in the office of the Auditor-General of Canada - discusses her Change.org petition campaign to rid Isle Madame of littering and illegal dumping, as well as her conversations with representatives of three levels of government to develop concrete solutions to the trash problem in Richmond County. 

The 27:45 mark sees a special feature on "Swim The Canal," a event launched in 2014 as part of the Nicolas Denys Days community celebration for the Village of St. Peter's. Stalled for the past two years due to COVID-19 restrictions in Nova Scotia, this event has attracted hundreds of Cape Bretoners - as well as visitors from across Canada and around the world - to plunge into the waters of the St. Peter's Canal National Historic Site for a kilometre-long swim between the Bras d'Or Lake and the Atlantic Ocean. 

At 38:55, we revisit our spring interview with Yarmouth MLA and former cabinet minister in the Liberal administrations of Stephen McNeil and Iain Rankin, Zach Churchill, who was chosen as Nova Scotia's new Liberal Party leader and official opposition leader at a convention held over the past weekend. Churchill defeated his only fellow candidate, first-term Preston MLA Angela Simmonds, by taking 65 per cent of the delegate votes as opposed to Simmonds' 35 per cent, according to a statement released by party officials this past Saturday evening. 

And we wrap things up at 55:16 with anti-littering activist Cali Kehoe returning to participate in the lighthearted TELILE 24/7 segment "The Fast Five."