National Dialogues on Addressing Anti-Indigenous Racism in Canada
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The 4 national dialogues, held between October 2020 and January 2023, offered new opportunities to bring together governments, health systems partners and Indigenous health organizations to discuss measures to address anti-Indigenous racism in Canada's health systems. These discussions, held after the death of Joyce Echaquan on September 28, 2020, helped identify many of the root causes and critical gaps that needed to be addressed to ensure access to high quality, culturally-informed health services and health care systems are free of racism and systemic discrimination against Indigenous people.
While the federal government has an important role to play in the provision and funding of Indigenous health services, Canada must work in partnership with provinces and territories, health system partners and educational institutions to advance anti-racism and cultural safety for all Indigenous people accessing services through those systems as well. Real and effective change requires all of our collective actions in a spirit of trust, commitment, cultural humility and reconciliation.
First national dialogue
On October 16, 2020, the Government of Canada convened an urgent meeting with:
- Joyce Echaquan's family and her First Nation's leadership
- Indigenous health practitioners and students
- First Nations, Inuit and Métis Nation leaders
- federal, provincial and territorial government representatives
- health system partners
The objectives of the meeting were:
- to listen to lived experiences of Indigenous people and health care professionals regarding systemic racism in federal, provincial and territorial health systems
- to reflect upon the information shared to inform concrete measures that governments, educational institutions, health professional associations, regulatory colleges and accreditation organizations can take
- to commit to a second gathering in January 2021 where these proposed or implemented measures would be presented by governments and health care organizations
Second national dialogue
On January 27 and 28, 2021, a second national dialogue was held. It focused on engagement between the Government of Canada with provincial and territorial governments, health systems and Indigenous partners to discuss concrete measures to eliminate anti-Indigenous racism in healthcare.
On February 10, 2021, the Government of Canada provided funding of $2 million to the Conseil de la Nation Atikamekw and the Conseil des Atikamekw de Manawan, Joyce's Nation, to advance their work and advocacy for the implementation of Joyce's Principle.
Third national dialogue
Working off the first 2 national dialogues, with initial steps of addressing anti-Indigenous racism in health systems, the third national dialogue was held on June 28 to 29, 2021. It focused on Anti-Indigenous racism and provided an opportunity to pursue collective actions related to:
- increasing Indigenous representation in postsecondary health education
- cultural safety and humility
- traditional approaches to health and safe patient navigation
Fourth national dialogue
In partnership with First Nations, Inuit and Métis partners, the fourth national dialogue was held January 24 to 26, 2023. It focused on data and initiating work towards the co-creation of a data strategy, or frameworks for capturing progress, that will enable action against Indigenous racism and racist outcomes in health systems. This dialogue helped establish common understandings of existing data sources, the challenges and gaps, data governance structures and processes, as well as guiding principles and shared priorities.