(Québec) Après avoir essuyé les critiques des médecins, le ministre Ian Lafrenière se bute à un obstacle majeur : le Bureau du Principe de Joyce claque la porte de la commission parlementaire sur le projet de loi visant à introduire la sécurisation culturelle en santé.
« Je suis plus fière des Québécois que de son gouvernement », a expliqué la directrice générale, Jennifer Petiquay-Dufresne. Celle-ci a lu une présentation de 10 minutes avant d’annoncer aux parlementaires qu’elle et son équipe quittaient la commission sans participer à la période d’échanges. Le ministre n’a pas réagi et est demeuré sur place. Ses collègues du Parti libéral ont quitté la salle à la recherche de réponses.
À la reprise des travaux, le ministre Lafrenière a brièvement indiqué que le Bureau du Principe de Joyce avait malgré tout un mémoire, qui pourra contribuer à l’amélioration du texte législatif.
Mme Petiquay-Dufresne a témoigné de son « inconfort » à participer à l’exercice. « On était profondément mal à l’aise avec l’approche gouvernementale qu’on a observée [mardi] in the first rounds of consultations, as well as the responses given [par le ministre aux intervenants] “, she argued during a press scrum after her release.
We had a deep unease to see Minister Lafrenière mention Joyce’s name excessively while objecting to his cause for his needs and his political designs. We, if we use Joyce’s memory in this way, it is because there must be concrete repercussions.
Jennifer Petiquay-Dufresne, executive director of the Joyce Principle Office
The Office is asking the Minister responsible for Relations with First Nations and Inuit to abandon Bill 32. It is, however, inviting him to co-write a future legislative text with Indigenous people, an option that the minister ruled out on Tuesday. Mr. Lafrenière assures that he consulted the main groups representing the First Nations before tabling his bill.
According to Mme Petiquay-Dufresne, this “consultation” was clearly insufficient. The chief of the Assembly of First Nations of Quebec and Labrador (APNQL), Ghislain Picard, has already indicated that he will not participate in the parliamentary committee, judging that the bill is “disrespectful”.
The Joyce Principle office was officially founded last summer. Adopted after the death of Joyce Echaquan, this principle “aims to guarantee to all Aboriginal people a right of equitable access, without any discrimination, to all social and health services, as well as the right to enjoy the best possible state of health physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.
PHOTO SARAH MONGEAU-BIRKETT, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Vigil in memory of Joyce Echaquan at Place Émilie-Gamelin
The Joyce Principle also recommends that the Quebec government recognize systemic racism. It is in the wake of the death of Mme Echaquan at the Joliette hospital, in September 2020, that the Legault government has made a commitment to legislate to establish the approach to cultural security across the health and social services network. The bill was tabled last June.
Tuesday, the College of Physicians opened the ball of special consultations on Bill 32. The professional order strongly criticized Quebec’s approach, affirming that the initial version of the legislative text is not “binding” enough, free from “the imprint of indigenous nations”, a “colonialist and paternalist” approach.
At the heart of their grievances: the refusal of the Legault government to recognize the existence of systemic racism in the health network. Minister Lafrenière said Tuesday he was “shocked” by the doctors’ exit. The minister does not intend to review his “position” on systemic racism nor to “co-draft” his legislative text with the First Nations, as requested by the professional order.
What is cultural security?
Cultural safety refers to care that is offered while respecting the cultural identity of the patient, in particular. The objective is, among other things, to increase Aboriginal people’s feeling of security towards public health services. The report of the Commission of Inquiry on Relations between Aboriginal Peoples and Certain Public Services (the Viens Commission) recommends that the government modify the Health and Social Services Act to embed the notion of cultural security, in collaboration with indigenous authorities.