Coming up on the CHMA daily news:
Gathering in silent solidarity in Sackville
An apartment building burns in Amherst
and more information about the Campbellton doctor at the source of the new outbreak
But first:
Two more people have tested positive with COVID-19 in New Brunswick, a person in their forties and a person in their sixties, both in the Campbellton region.
There are now 15 active cases in the province, all in the Campbellton region. Five people are in hospital, and one is in intensive care.
There is also one new active case across the border in Quebec, also linked to the Atholville long-term care facility.
Public Health reported 1125 new test results yesterday, about half of what they reported the day before.
Nova Scotia reported one new case of COVID-19 yesterday.
There are still 5 active cases of the disease in the province, according to provincial officials.
Many Nova Scotia businesses, such as restaurants, bars and personal services, will be allowed to open this Friday.
Nearly 300 people gathered outside Sackville’s main post office yesterday as part of a silent vigil to protest against racism.
The vigil was one of a series of protests across Canada and the U.S. sparked by the killing last week of George Floyd, a black man who died after being pinned to the ground by police in Minneapolis.
The Sackville gathering happened after Marilyn Lerch, the town’s former poet laureate, invited people to join her at the post office for an anti-racism vigil.
Lerch says the killing of George Floyd shows there’s racism in the U.S., but there’s also racism in Canada:
AUDIO CLIP 41 seconds OPENS: “I WISH WE COULD SAY THAT…
CLIP ENDS: “…WITH A FEW HOURS NOTICE COME HERE AND STAND TOGETHER.”
Marilyn Lerch carried a placard at yesterday’s vigil calling for racial equality in Canada.
Another participant at the Sackville rally called on white Canadians to question their racial bias.
Ivan Okello says that as a black man from Uganda, he has experienced racial discrimination here:
AUDIO CLIP 35 seconds, OPENS: “MOST OF MY EXPERIENCES OF RACISM HAVE RANGED FROM…
CLIP ENDS: “…YOUR SENSE OF SECURITY IS THREATENED.”
Ivan Okello serves as the Black Student Advisor at Mount Allison University.
He says the students he advises often feel powerless because of the racism they encounter.
Yesterday’s anti-racism rally outside the Sackville Post Office lasted about forty minutes.
No one was physically injured when fire heavily damaged a Belliveau Avenue apartment building in Amherst on Wednesday.
Amherst firefighters were called to the scene at about 1:30 p.m. As they arrived, they could see a greyish-white smoke billowing from the eaves of the two-storey building that contained three apartments.
Flames were also licking the side of the building near the entrance to the upper storey apartment.
Crews battled the blaze from inside and outside of the building.
Fire Chief Greg Jones said the occupants of two of the apartments were home when the blaze broke out.
Occupants of a third apartment were not home when the fire started, but returned to the property shortly after the fire began.
Firefighters remained on the scene until about 4 p.m.
Jones said the cause of the fire is under investigation, but at this point the fire is not considered suspicious.
The doctor who is considered to be the source of the outbreak in Campbellton told Radio-Canada he is now on the receiving end of hate-filled and racist social media posts and phone calls which he feels are trying to incite violence against him.
The doctor, Jean-Robert Ngola [En-go-la], is Black.
He crossed the border into Quebec to retrieve his 4-year-old daughter, as her mother was leaving the country for a funeral.
It’s not clear when he made the trip, or where exactly in Quebec he went.
He says he picked up his daughter and returned immediately.
When he got back to Campbellton, he went back to work, and his daughter went to daycare for essential workers. Neither had any symptoms, and didn’t get tested until May 25, when he received a contact tracing call from Public Health, alerting him that one of his patients had tested positive.
Ngola says returning to work without self-isolating was an error in judgement.
Two New Brunswick Provincial Ministers issued a statement yesterday to mark the first anniversary of the release of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls report.
Service New Brunswick Minister Sherry Wilson––who is also minister responsible for women’s equality––and Aboriginal Affairs Minister Jake Stewart say the report lists 231 Calls for Justice.
They say the list highlights the important work needed to address the violence happening across Canada, so that Indigenous women and girls can be safe and live free of violence.
The ministers say the New Brunswick Advisory Committee on Violence will provide advice and guidance on how to move forward on recommendations.
Engagement meetings put on hold as result of COVID-19 will be held once new engagement safety plans are developed, the ministers say.
Nova Scotia’s justice minister says there will be a joint federal-provincial inquiry or review into the mass killing in April that claimed 22 lives, but the exact form of that investigation is still taking shape.
Furey says he and his staff are negotiating with Ottawa to determine the best option, which could include a traditional federal-provincial public inquiry led by an independent commissioner.
He also said there could be a review similar to the one the RCMP conducted after three Mounties were killed by a gunman in Moncton, N.B., in June 2014.
Furey says he would like the investigation to take a so-called restorative approach, which is what the province did in 2015 when it looked into allegations of long-term abuse at a former orphanage in the Halifax area.
In the US, prosecutors have expanded their case against the police officers involved in George Floyd’s death.
Derek Chauvin, the office who kneeled on Floyd’s neck for over 8 minutes despite cries to stop, is now being charged with second degree murder.
Three other officers were charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder.
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Today we’d like to leave you with some of the voices of those who attended Wednesday’s anti-racism vigil outside the Post Office in Sackville.
CHMA’s James Anderson asked some of the nearly 300 attendees why they decided to show their solidarity.
AUDIO 6:39
ENDS WITH: “And you can use your privilege to help us build our movement.”
Those were the voices of some of the people who attended Wednesday’s anti-racism vigil in Sackville.
There is another anti-racism event planned for Moncton this Friday at noon.
People are being asked to gather at Heritage Court and walk peacefully – with masks and physical distancing – to Moncton City Hall.
That’s it for the CHMA daily news.
Thanks to Bruce Wark and Geoff Degannes for their contributions.
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