The Failure of Federal Indigenous Healthcare Policy in Canada

Source: Yellowhead Institute
Year: 2021

The federal government held two days of meetings in 2021 on developing Indigenous health care legislation. These virtual meetings included some, but not all provincial and territorial health ministers, along with First Nations, Inuit and Métis Nation representatives, including Indigenous doctors, and was partly in response to the racist treatment and death of Joyce Echaquan of the Atikamekw Nation in a Quebec hospital in September of last year. If and when this legislation materializes, it will be a first in Canadian history. This country has never developed a law around Indigenous health care.