New Brunswick's education minister has ordered the cancellation of a school assignment that asked children which lives they would save if they had to choose among different ethnic groups.

Kelly Lamrock's move came after outrage was expressed by a mother at the school.

"I can't mince words," Lamrock said. "It is unacceptable in every way. Whatever the intent was, it invites and encourages defining people by stereotypes. It needs to stop."

The education minister said the objective of promoting cultural diversity is a part of the curriculum, but that specific class project is not.

The assignment for the Grade 4 students at École Mont-Carmel in Ste-Marie-de-Kent was based on the notion that the planet was about to explode.

The students had three spaces in a rocket ship and they had to decide which person they would save among the following: an Acadian francophone, a Chinese person, a black African, an English person and an aboriginal person.

The assignment also included images representing each of the different ethnic groups that they could choose to save.

The controversy began after Jessie Lomax complained when her 10-year-old daughter was given the assignment, which, the woman said, is better suited for "concentration camp employees."

She said her daughter, Feven, whom she adopted from Ethiopia a year and a half ago, came home recently upset by the social studies project.

'To me it looks like training for concentration camp employees. It's disgusting.'— Jessie Lomax, mother

Lomax said her daughter felt troubled by this assignment.

"She definitely found it was upsetting. She felt it was wrong, she didn't understand it," she said.

"It's also terrifying for her. She's the only child of any other racial or ethnic group in that class. To then be walked through this exercise with limited understanding, to her it's terrifying.

"It's as though she is set in an environment where this is a possibility in Canada."

Unhappy with school's response

Feven has a sister named Halina who is in Grade 3 at the same school.

Lomax's mother, Laura Maillet, has a four-year-old daughter who was also adopted from Ethiopia.

Lomax and Maillet complained to the principal and the teacher. But they said the school's response was unacceptable.

"They seem to refuse to acknowledge it is inappropriate to suggest that it's the right way to handle racism or any of those issues in a class environment," she said.

"To me it looks like training for concentration camp employees. It's disgusting. And we're going to go further with it, obviously."

Maillet said the school assignment is asking kids to make a life-or-death decision based only on language and ethnicity.

"Then the exercise goes on with ludicrous questions like, 'Was it a difficult decision and how do you think the other people would feel?'" she said.

This is the second time the education minister has been forced to publicly distance himself from a decision made by a staff member of a provincial school. A principal at Belleisle Elementary School stopped the daily singing of O Canada and moved it to monthly assemblies.

That decision sparked a national controversy. Lamrock said he thought the anthem should be sung at the start of school.

Principal defends Grade 4 project

Before Lamrock made his ruling, the local school was defending the assignment.

Bernice Ryan, the principal of École Mont-Carmel, said she has listened to Lomax's concerns, but feels the exercise is a good one, as it is intended to show the students how to be respectful to all groups.

"Children would say, 'Well, we don't want to make any decision so we kept everyone here on the planet.' Or some of the students would say, 'Well, we've chosen to keep the three main ethnical groups in our community, which is English, French and Amerindian, because of being able to communicate,'" she said.

There's confusion over where the school assignment originated.

Ryan said the exercise was prepared by the Department of Education and is part of the curriculum. The principal said she doesn't believe the exercise is out of date, but she has passed concerns on to the district office.

However, Gerald Richard, the District 11 superintendent, said the material was not made in the Department of Education. He said he believed it was locally produced.

Richard said the district has an education specialist in humanities and he has asked that person to call the parents directly. And if the specialist can't call the parents, Richard said he will talk to them personally.

"I have to admit it really doesn't sound good. It got my attention. We contacted the school," he said. "[The] exercise will no longer be used in that school or any other school."

A copy of the assignment handed out to Grade 4 students at École Mont-Carmel in Ste-Marie-de-Kent, N.B.