The Legault government will finally table a bill on cultural security in the health network, as it promised to do after the death of Joyce Echaquan at the Joliette hospital in September 2020.
“We had promised that we would take care of it, we are keeping our promises”, launched Thursday the Minister Ian Lafrenière, responsible for Relations with the First Nations and the Inuit.
The bill establishing the cultural security approach within the health and social services network should be tabled in the National Assembly on Friday.
In 2019, the Commission of Inquiry into Relations between Indigenous Peoples and Certain Public Services in Quebec (Commission Viens) recommended enshrining the notion of cultural security in the Act respecting health and social services. Cultural security serves in particular to create reassuring and welcoming environments for Aboriginal people, many of whom experience racism and discrimination in the Quebec health care system.
In 2020, Minister Lafrenière pledged to incorporate “very soon” the notion of cultural security into the law. He backed down two years later, angering Atikamekw leaders and opposition parties.
On Thursday, he said he met with “fourteen people and groups” before tabling his bill. “It was important to do that. There will be consultations and everything,” he added.
He was responding to a question about the Assembly of First Nations of Quebec and Labrador (AFNQL), which recently asked the government, through an interview with The Press, to abandon its bill on cultural security. In 2022, the AFNQL demanded this legislative measure.
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