N.B.’s ongoing battle with Wolastoqey Nation is not reconciliation in action – IRPP

January 20, 2022

The Wolastoqey are seeking land title for the Saint John River. The province has responded with fearmongering. It is time for calmer voices to emerge.

New Brunswick cabinet ministers seem to be on a sustained campaign to create division between non-Indigenous New Brunswickers and the Indigenous people of New Brunswick. Why? Because the Wolastoqey Nation has invoked their constitutional rights to seek legal confirmation of their Aboriginal title to the watershed of the Wolastoq, known to the non-Indigenous population as the Saint John River.

This campaign, on the heels of the provincial government’s refusal to launch a public inquiry into systemic racism in the justice system and a unilateral announcement that tax-sharing arrangements with First Nations would end seems to be the latest in an approach to Crown-Indigenous relations in New Brunswick that is the polar opposite of reconciliation.

Read More: https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/january-2022/nbs-battle-with-wolastoqey-nation-not-reconciliation-in-action/