On Jan. 16, New Brunswick Post-Secondary Education and Training Minister Jean-Claude D’Amours announced the opening of the new office.
“Racism has no place in New Brunswick,” said D’Amours in a statement. “We all have a role to play in creating a province that is inclusive, welcoming and free of hate. Dismantling all forms of racism will take a sustained, multi-generational effort, and we are proud to present how government intends to lead this change across the province.”
A news release notes that New Brunswick has followed in the footsteps of some of its Canadian counterparts.
“New Brunswick is the fifth Canadian jurisdiction to establish such an office, and its focus will be on addressing racism and promoting equity and inclusion,” it states.
Ben McNamara, executive director of the New Brunswick Multicultural Council, called the establishment of the office “a significant step” for the province.
“As the report of the commissioner on systemic racism made clear, we need leadership at a senior level with the power to oversee the dismantling of systemic racism,” said McNamara. “We stand ready to work alongside this office and the government of New Brunswick to ensure the recommendations from the report translate into meaningful action for all New Brunswickers.”
Also, the release notes that New Brunswick’s government has now completed 59 per cent of the 86 recommendations made in a 2022 report authored by Commissioner on Systemic Racism, Manju Varma.
In her report, Varma found a trend where many people turn a blind eye to the issue.
“One of the noticeable disturbing trends in nearly all sectors of New Brunswick society is the disposition of ignoring systemic racism until it impacts the majority population,” writes Varma.
As part of her investigation, Varma canvased people’s experiences with racism: A Black elementary school student saying he would rather stay home than deal with “racist name calling”; a visible minority doctor born in New Brunswick but whose patients refused treatment because she “didn’t look Canadian”; a woman who kept the fact she was Indigenous from her supervisor due to fear it would harm her career; a woman on a tourism visa who turned to police to report domestic abuse, only to be told they could not help her because she did not have status in Canada.
Varma’s recommendations included educating government officials on the meaning of systemic racism; creating a task force to dismantle systemic racism in New Brunswick policing; making efforts to protect Indigenous languages; educating the public in a bid to decrease the divide between Anglophones and Francophones; and developing an anti-racism policy and mandate for all workplaces in the province.
Varma was appointed commissioner in 2021.
During a press conference about the new anti-racism office, a reporter pointed out to Minister D’Amours that New Brunswick’s Liberals came to power in late 2024. (Susan Holt’s Liberals unseated Premier Blaine Higgs and his Progressive Conservatives in that year’s election.) With this, D’Amours was asked why it is only now the government is addressing the commissioner’s report in a formal way.
“We were elected just a little bit more than a year ago, [and] that was in our … campaign platform, that we promised to finalize the report and [work] on the recommendations. … Last year, I did say in the Legislative Assembly that we were to finalize and [make] an announcement. The objective initially was to do it by the end of 2025 – we are only a few days after. But surely, you know, we are respecting our promise to New Brunswickers. We cannot change the past. I cannot say why the other government didn't do it.”
The Jan. 16 announcement also detailed the launch of a new website dedicated to tackling systemic racism in New Brunswick. The site informs residents how to report racism or discrimination and what the government is doing to eradicate it. The site also details the progress made on the commissioner’s recommendations.
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