Instituted in 2000 by Lieutenant Governor Marilyn Trenholme Counsell, on the advice of the Cabinet under Premier Bernard Lord,[1] the order is administered by the Governor-in-Council and is intended to honour current or former New Brunswick residents for conspicuous achievements in any field, being thus described as the highest honour amongst all others conferred by the New Brunswick Crown.

[2] The process of finding qualified individuals begins with submissions from the public to the Order of New Brunswick Advisory Council, which consists of the Chief Justice of New Brunswick; the Clerk of the Executive Council; the president of a Crown-funded university in the province, each serving on a rotating basis; and between three and five Members of the Order of New Brunswick, one of whom serves as the chairperson of the council.

[1] This committee then meets at least once annually to make its selected recommendations to the lieutenant governor; posthumous nominations are not accepted, though an individual who dies after his or her name was submitted to the Advisory Council can still be retroactively made a Member of the Order of New Brunswick.

[2] The lieutenant governor, ex officio a Member and the Chancellor of the Order of New Brunswick,[1] then makes all appointments into the fellowship's single grade of membership by an Order in Council that bears the viceroyal sign-manual and the Great Seal of the province; thereafter, the new Members are entitled to use the post-nominal letters ONB.

The main badge consists of a gold medallion in the form of a stylized viola cucullata (or purple violet)—the official provincial flower—with the obverse in violet enamel with gold edging, and bearing at its centre the escutcheon of the arms of New Brunswick, all surmounted by a St. Edward's Crown symbolizing the Canadian monarch's role as the fount of honour.