At a legislative committee meeting last week, New Brunswick’s Environment Minister misstated that Premier Blaine Higgs has been having weekly meetings with First Nations chiefs in New Brunswick.
He hasn’t.
Later in the week, Aboriginal Affairs minister Arlene Dunn issued a lengthy statement to a New Brunswick reporter, boasting about how her overhauled department has centralized all interactions through a group that takes its lead from expensive external lawyers and Higgs himself.
A very similar message was recently included in an affidavit filed by government lawyers in the ongoing Wolastoqey title case.
The minister’s statement lacks affirmation from a single Indigenous leader or community that these unilateral changes are making things better for Indigenous people.
It also fails to include the measure by which the department is tracking its touted “improvements.”
If we were asked, we would have clearly stated that these changes are not helping build a Nation-to-Nation relationship.
Instead, this government shut down what were becoming positive, productive relations with bureaucrats across many departments. Now, all discussions with First Nations are funneled through a group of expensive corporate lawyers who answer only to Premier Blaine Higgs.
When you reform an Aboriginal Affairs department without engaging First Nations, the results are predictable: marginalization, paternalism, disingenuous consultation, and disenfranchisement within government. The government’s own environment minister, a man responsible for several files that directly affect our Nation, hasn’t been properly briefed by this new centralized system.
We are not being consulted with – a constitutional requirement and legally protected right. Instead, we are expected to be thankful for getting talked at by bureaucrats whose sole mandate is to check a box, tally the interaction and ensure those hard numbers get reported up the chain.
This is shamefully far from the partnership approach the minister has described, and contrary to her proclamation that First Nations need to be respected and engaged with in an honourable manner.
We are ready to work with any government that is ready for a consistent, reliable, and Nation-to-Nation relationship founded in good faith.
We want to be equal partners in the success and the future of our shared home. Woliwon / Wəliwən.