A new advocacy group for the English language in New Brunswick held its first meeting in Sussex Thursday night.

Barb Vessey is a founding member of the Anglophone Rights Association of New Brunswick. (CBC) Members say they want to keep bilingualism, but with a greater share of public service money and jobs for anglophones.

"We do not want to be a bunch of raving maniacs, cursing and swearing," said Rex Tracy, addressing a crowd of more than 50 people in Sussex.

Tracy is the director of the Anglophone Rights Association of New Brunswick. The new group says it wants to promote and preserve the English language.

Its goals include seeing anglophone school boards and health facilities receive funding in proportion to the English-speaking population of the province. In the 2011 census, Statistics Canada reported 32.5 per cent of people in New Brunswick reported their mother tongue was French.

The Anglophone Rights Association of New Brunswick held its first meeting in Sussex on Thursday. (CBC) "If they want duality, that's wonderful, they can have their duality. But I think we should have taxation based on representation," said member Barb Vessey.

The group also wants anglophones to have a proportionate share of civil service and private sector jobs.

"All we're looking for is equality, but we're not getting equality," said Vessey. "We're paying for something totally, totally over and above what we're receiving ourselves."

The association says it wants to work with anglophone politicians to achieve its goals.