After two years going without one, a Petitcodiac River bridge finally has a name.
The Honourable Brenda Robertson Bridge is named after the first woman elected to the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick, in 1967, and the first to become a cabinet minister, appointed by Richard Hatfield in 1970.
“She was a dedicated, respected leader, not just in our province, but across Canada,” Richard Ames, minister of the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure, said Thursday when the name was announced.
“Since this bridge is an important connection to the regions near and dear to her heart, cabinet felt naming this bridge in her honour was a fitting tribute.”
Robertson’s son, Doug Robertson, spoke at the announcement and said the naming of the bridge in his mother’s honour means a lot to the family.
“Many girls and women have followed in her footsteps, but more importantly forged their own paths,” he said.
The bridge, one of two that connect Riverview and Moncton, was the capstone in a decades-long push to restore tidal flow to the Petitcodiac River, which had been choked by a causeway built in the 1960s.
The bridge cost $61.6 million and opened in September 2021. Two months after it opened, then-transportation minister Jill Green said in an interview that the name was “extremely important.”
Green pledged to announce the new name by spring 2022 but that didn’t happen, and eventually the status of the name became unclear.
Several suggestions for the bridge have been put forward
The Petitcodiac Riverkeeper, an environmental group that highlighted the degraded conditions of the river ahead of the decision to restore tidal flow, suggested something meant to represent the Mi’kmaw, Acadian and anglophone cultures.
The group suggested Pont Petigotiag Bridge, which it said uses the Mi’kmaw word for “river that bends like a bow.”
At the announcement Thursday, Ames said he wanted to acknowledge the people and the organizations who put forward suggestions, “but at the end of the day, cabinet made, what I feel is a very meaningful decision.”
Honouring a ‘trailblazer’
The new name for the bridge comes more than a year after Robertson’s family raised concerns that a promise by the Higgs government to commemorate her in a prominent and public way may have been forgotten.
But Higgs told CBC News at the time that his government was still committed to a commemoration and had a plan in place.
The former senator died in 2020 at the age 91, after establishing a long legacy in politics.
Robertson was elected a Progressive Conservative member of the legislature for the riding of Albert in October 1967 and sat in opposition for three years during the final term of Liberal premier Louis Robichaud.
After the PCs came to power in 1970 under Richard Hatfield, Robertson became the first woman to be appointed a provincial cabinet minister. She held a number of portfolios, most notably health.
In 1984, she was appointed to the Senate by then-prime minister Brian Mulroney and remained in that role until her retirement in 2004.
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Robertson was also named to the Order of New Brunswick in 2001, and in 2008 she was described as a “role model for women in politics,” when she was made a member of the Order of Canada.
PC MLA Sherry Wilson, the minister responsible for women’s equality, said Robertson was a groundbreaking leader. She said it is a privilege to follow in her footsteps.
“As a woman, she led the charge. She was a trailblazer in getting women in politics and making us realize, ‘hey, there’s a place there for us too.'”
This story was originally published in CBC News on Oct. 5, 2023.
Hannah Rudderham Portfolio 