Outrage over racial justice and police brutality against indigenous people has grown in Canada after Quebec medical staff were filmed in a video posted online uttering racist insults while treating an indigenous woman shortly before her death.
In a seven-minute video streamed Monday evening, Joyce Echaquan, a 37-year-old Atikamekw woman, screamed in distress and made urgent calls for help from a stretcher while two hospital staff members made racist insults about her. Echaquan died soon after. She had gone to the Joliette hospital, about 70 kilometers (44 miles) from Montreal, a few days earlier for stomach pain, according to local media. Premier Francois Legault announced that one of the nurses had been fired.
The Atikamekw council of Manawan decried the nurses' remarks, saying they "clearly demonstrate racism against First Nations." "I know very well that most of the time, the racism we are subjected to is not intentional and that it is often the result of unconscious biases," said Ghislain Picard, grand chief of the First Nations of Quebec and Labrador. But "it is also very often the fruit of government policies which lead to systemic discrimination," he added.
On Twitter, reactions multiplied under the hashtag #JusticePourJoyce.
Echaquan's death comes a year after the publication of a public inquiry report that concluded that "members of the First Nations and Inuit of Quebec are indeed victims of systemic discrimination in their relations with public services."
Indigenous people make up about 5% of Canada's nearly 37 million population. Since the 1970s, the number of murdered and vanished indigenous women and girls is estimated at around 1,000 to 4,000. Police forces have been accused of not fully investigating the disappearances and killings because the victims were indigenous. A 2019 Quebec government report found systemic discrimination against indigenous people accessing public services. The report called for the Canadian justice system and police forces to acknowledge they have been guilty of "racism, bias, discrimination and fundamental culture and societal differences" when dealing with indigenous women and girls.
In June, a video showing a forceful arrest of a Canadian indigenous leader by Royal Canadian Mounted Police over an incident involving an expired license plate was criticized by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Greater global awareness over the treatment of minorities and indigenous communities has been kindled since the death of George Floyd at the hands of U.S. law enforcement prompted weeks of protests in the U.S. and around the world. Floyd, a black man, died in handcuffs while a Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee on his neck even after he pleaded for air and stopped moving.
