Early talks on an Indigenous-led public inquiry into systemic racism are underway between the New Brunswick government and First Nations, after widespread calls for justice system reforms stretching back more than half a decade.
Indigenous Affairs Minister Keith Chiasson says the Liberal government and Indigenous leaders met last week on the topic and agreed to continue deliberations in the coming months to get the inquiry off the ground.
“We are fully supportive of an Indigenous-led inquiry on systemic racism and obviously this is just the first step,” Chiasson told reporters on Wednesday.
“There’s a lot of work to be done to kind of clarify that and kind of really put more framework on what it’s going to look like moving forward.”
Two Indigenous people — Chantel Moore and Rodney Levi — were shot and killed by New Brunswick police officers in 2020 in separate incidents, sparking protests and calls to reform the justice system.
Since then, two other Indigenous people have been shot and killed by police, including Steven Dedam in 2024 and Bronson Paul in January of this year, renewing calls once again by Indigenous leaders and advocates for an inquiry into the justice system.
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In the cases of Moore, Levi and Dedam, the police officers involved in the shooting deaths were cleared of criminal wrongdoing and didn’t face charges. The death of Paul remains under investigation by the region’s independent police watchdog — Serious Incident Response Team.
Chief Allan Polchies Jr., of Sitansisk First Nation in Fredericton, said the previous Progressive Conservative government wasn’t receptive to the scope of inquiry being prepared with the Liberals.
“Systemic racism is an issue in this province and this is a major start,” Polchies Jr. told reporters at the legislature Wednesday, saying details are still being worked out.
The Tories under premier Blaine Higgs, who lost to Susan Holt’s Liberals in 2024, established a government-led commission in 2021 to examine institutional racism across the public sector.
After a year of public consultations with various minority groups, the commission released a report with 86 recommendations. However, critics said that broad anti-racism effort lumped distinct Indigenous experiences with those of other racialized groups and lacked the investigative independence a public inquiry would have.
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After the death earlier this year of Paul of Neqotkuk First Nation, the six chiefs of the Wolastoqey Nation called for “justice and action that heals, not inflames, relationships between First Nations and institutional law enforcement.”
“This includes transparent investigations into specific incidents and the underlying systems which lead to elevated risks for Indigenous people.”
Indigenous lawyer Naiomi Metallic, an associate professor at Dalhousie University’s Schulich School of Law, says she was happily surprised to learn the government is moving ahead with long-standing calls for an inquiry.
“This is something that New Brunswickers should embrace. I think this is really important and will make the province stronger,” Metallic, who lives in Nova Scotia, told The Canadian Press by phone.
She wrote an academic article in 2020 calling for a public inquiry into New Brunswick’s justice system similar to what took place in Nova Scotia in 1989, writing that Mi’gmaq and Wolastoqiyik peoples were demanding more than just an investigation into police conduct.
“I believe an inquiry is desperately needed and overdue,” she wrote at the time. Now, she believes that it’s even more urgently needed as part of the effort to eliminate anti-Indigenous bias.
“There is some impact to having a credible body state the obvious and detail the extent of the systemic discrimination,” Metallic said.
“And also come up with solutions and identify how different institutions within the province can respond. I think that should make a really big difference.”
“In the cases of Moore, Levi and Dedam, the police officers involved in the shooting deaths were cleared of criminal wrongdoing and didn’t face charges.”
Means not racism.
Natives are the worst for being racist. The greater proportion of criminals happen to be native. So do the crime, do the time. Quit pulling the racist card.
It will not make the province stronger, if the result is special treatment of natives. That is what they want.