N.B. systemic racism report 'severely flawed,' says anti-racism advocate

A longtime lecturer at the University of New Brunswick and Dalhousie School of Medicine, who's written extensively on ethics and racism, says the report released by New Brunswick's first-ever commissioner on systemic racism was severely flawed.

Timothy Christie said the report released on Friday by Manju Varma was "not based on any valid scientific method."

He said the report was simply a collection of people's stories and if there were good recommendations to come out of the report it was "not because of any rigorous methodology, but by coincidence."

"It's not a result of data. It's the result of anecdotes. So she consulted with hundreds of people across the province and recorded their stories, and then based on their stories would give recommendations."

Not enough scientific rigour, says advocate

In fact, Christie said the report contained an overabundance of individual anecdotes. 

Including an example of an international student who would like to work more than 20 hours a week is "certainly not going to address systemic racism in New Brunswick."

While it's important to talk to the victims of racism, Christie said it doesn't get at the root of the problem. To do that, he said, you also have to talk to perpetrators "and the establishment and the systems we have in place."

Only talking to victims misses 75-80 per cent of the problem, Christie told Information Morning Saint John.

Plus, he said, the consultations are voluntary, which skews the collection of anecdotes. That's why he supports holding a public inquiry. 

"It has legal authority to subpoena documents, subpoena witnesses … to force people to testify under oath," said Christie. 

"This is hugely beneficial when you're trying to get to the root cause of something."

Christie said the money spent on the year-long study could have been better spent elsewhere.

He said he spoke with Varma before she began her work and told her that her methodology was flawed and not rigorous enough, and that her recommendations could be easily ignored by government. 

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"And at that point, she said, 'Well, this government, it's the first government to appoint a commissioner, it's the first government to undertake this work. So obviously they're going to be willing to take what I say seriously.'"

Christie said he told her he didn't believe that.

"From the beginning, I explained to her, if you don't go the public inquiry route, if you don't have a scientific basis to this, you're going to have recommendations that people can take or leave, but they're not going to be based on anything rigorous."

Commissioner calls for 'task force'

Varma was asked for an interview on Tuesday to discuss Christie's criticism, but did not respond by publication time. 

Among her 86 recommendations, Varma called for "a task force focused on dismantling systemic racism in New Brunswick policing," and more education for senior government officials and politicians "on the meaning of systemic racism."

But she stopped short of recommending the province call a public inquiry, something Indigenous leaders have been calling on the province to do for several years.

Premier Blaine Higgs has refused to endorse an inquiry, saying recommendations from other reviews and inquiries could be implemented.

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