Quebec has failed to deliver on its promise that it would enshrine in the law the principle of cultural safety for Indigenous communities.
“The minister has presented a plan with 50 actions and the word Indigenous is not there,” said Liberal MNA Greg Kelley, speaking about Christian Dubé’s recent health reform.
“After Joyce Echaquan‘s death, after this traumatic event, how can the health minister forget Indigenous people in this reform?”
Echaquan was an Atikamekw woman who died in a Joliette hospital where she was racially taunted by staff.
Quebec Indigenous Affairs Minister Ian Lafrenière made the promise to enshrine cultural safety in the law in March 2021, following reports of allegations of new cases of discrimination at the same hospital where Echaquan died.
Cultural safety aims to ensure the rights and culture of Indigenous people are respected when receiving health care, something Sipi Flamand, the vice-chief of the Manawan band council, says is important for the community.
“It’s a promise that wasn’t honoured and it’s going to have an impact on the Indigenous communities, it’s going to have an impact on Indigenous patients who are going to hospitals. They won’t have the services they should have as individuals,” said Flamand.
Flamand says that following Echaquan’s traumatic death, some members of the community prefer to endure pain instead of going to hospital out of fear of mistreatment.
“There has been a loss of trust towards the health-care system, the hospitals.”
Veronique Hivon, Parti Québécois MNA for Joliette, was outraged to learn the news the government wasn’t going ahead with its promise.
In the fall of 2020, Hivon introduced a motion at the national assembly asking the government to work alongside Indigenous communities to enshrine the cultural safety principal in the law. It was unanimously approved.
“I think it’s such a slap in the face of Aboriginal communities, Atikamekw especially, and Joyce Echaquan’s family,” Hivon said.
The Atikamekw community had also asked the government to adopt Joyce’s Principle, a list of proposals to improve health care for First Nations.
But the government refused because it would force them to recognize there is systemic racism in Quebec.
First Nations communities say they are saddened, disappointed but not surprised with the province’s latest move.
“I think it’s a strong indication that they’re not really wanting to do anything on the medium or long term,” said Ghislain Picard, chief of the Assembly of First Nations Quebec-Labrador.
Meanwhile, Lafrenière defended himself at the national assembly.
“I’ve never, ever, ever said that we were giving up on putting cultural safety in the law. I never said that,” Lafrenière said when questioned by Kelley.
Lafrenière went on to say it was still on the table and that they were taking action, pointing to the $15-million investment that was announced two years ago to provide cultural training to management and workers in the health-care network.
Picard questioned the training.
“Only a small portion of that staff took on that training and I would be curious to see what that training is all about,” Picard said.
“We were never consulted in any way or shape in terms of that training.”
Picard says the current relationship between Indigenous communities is not working and the government needs to include First Nations people more.