Is New Brunswick's New Policy on Land Acknowledgements Racist?

Co-hosts Dr. Timothy Christie and Matthew Martin took a closer look at why the New Brunswick government's new policy on land acknowledgements is receiving backlash for being racist on an episode of NBWA: New Brunswickers Want Action on CHCO-TV. 

"The government of New Brunswick recently issued a letter out to its employees with an approved land acknowledgement for GNB employees to state," explained Martin. "The approved acknowledgement statement did not acknowledge that the land that the government is currently in control of is on unceded and unsurrendered territory. On the approved government acknowledgements, they've removed those words because of current legal litigation that's happening over land in New Brunswick."

"What's happened is that the government is currently in court, and they are being sued for land titles by some Indigenous groups here in New Brunswick," said Dr. Christie. "Some of the legal advice they have received is that provincial employees should no longer acknowledge publicly that the territory we are on here in New Brunswick is unceded or unsurrendered. These Indigenous groups in New Brunswick have longstanding treaties that go back to the 1700s. Our current government has made relationships so untennable with First Nations communities that they've had to go to court."

Martin and Dr. Christie discussed how the government's choice not to use the words "unceded" and "unsurrendered" in land acknowledgements simultaneously is a denial of New Brunswick's brutal racist history.

"None of us can go back to the 1700s and fix what happened, but we can reason from the truth," said Dr. Christie. "The government should not make soft history versions of the truth to justify its actions."

"If we look at Canada as a whole, we've put so much into truth and reconciliation, but we are not doing that here in New Brunswick," said Martin. "If we look here in New Brunswick and we look at the facts, we've seen the government terminated the tax revenue agreement with Indigenous communities, and we've seen the government not recognize the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation Day, and now we see our government in a legal battle with our Indigenous communities and, with that, tell its employees not to recognize the province's land as unceded. When is the government--be it this one or the next--going to say enough is enough and we are going to begin the process of truth and reconciliation?"

"It's got to end with someone," said Dr. Christie.