Chief: “We didn’t need a further demonstration of systemic bias.”
Three of the five parties running in the New Brunswick provincial election have promised to enact an Indigenous-led public inquiry into systemic racism in New Brunswick.
The six chiefs of the Wolastoqey nation sent all parties a list of twelve policy questions, and reported back this week with party answers. The chiefs also assigned grades to each answer.
The New Democrats, Liberals and Greens all scored an average grade of A minus.
Kingsclear Chief Gabriel Atwin said in a statement there was, “definitely common ground if any of these three parties form government, or even play a role in another minority.”
Both the Progressive Conservative party and the People’s Alliance declined to respond to the policy survey, and so received a failing grade from the six Wolastoqey chiefs.
Madawaska Chief Patricia Bernard said it was “extremely discouraging” to have the “governing coalition” from the past two years decline to participate. She said in a statement, “we didn’t need a further demonstration of systemic bias.”
