A motion from Saint John common council calling to penalize racial discrimination is now in the hands of New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs.
Higgs was given a copy of the motion Wednesday when he met with Saint John Black Lives Matter president Matthew Martin and Ralph Thomas of the New Brunswick Black History Society.
“I think our meeting today was actually a really good step for New Brunswick, bringing attention to Mr. Higgs that systemic racism is a part of New Brunswick,” Martin told reporters after the meeting.
“It was a small step, but it was a step in the right direction nonetheless.”
At Monday’s meeting of Saint John council, a motion to petition provincial and federal governments to make the legislative changes necessary to have racial discrimination punishable under the Criminal Code passed unanimously.
The motion, sponsored by the city’s mayor and presented by Horizon Health Network’s regional director of ethics services Dr. Timothy Christie, sent city staff out to look into punishing racism on a municipal level, while Higgs says the motion will be reviewed in Fredericton.
“I want to understand what the next steps are and how we can move forward in a productive way,” says Higgs.
“I’m evaluating that now and deciding how we can move productively in the next direction.”
On top of the motion, Wednesday’s meeting also saw the discussion of improving Black history education in the province and the potential for a permanent Black history museum.
“I think the discussion went well, but more importantly for me, it’s us defining next steps and then having subsequent meetings, that we don’t just have one and call it quits; it’s to have one that builds on the next one and we just keep moving the bar,” Higgs says.
Martin says he feels confident that the message has been heard but that time will tell what the outcome will be.
“It’s one of those things that takes time,” Martin says. “As much as we’d love to snap our fingers and change happen, it’s not necessarily like that.”
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