RACISM Dr. Margo Greenwood, Academic Leader, National Collaborating Centre for Indigenous Health, Vice President of Indigenous Health, Northern Health, Professor First Nations Studies, UNBC
A deeply disturbing racism permeates Canadian society, which is especially evident in the health care system. Take, for example, the horrifying treatment of Joyce Echaquan, a 37-year-old Atikamekw mother who died in hospital, or the allegations of racism revealed in a “Price is Right” game against BC’s health care system, or the fatal neglect of Brian Sinclair, a 45-year-old Indigenous man, or the forced and coerced sterilization of Indigenous women and girls. However, the urgent need to address the insidious racism entrenched in Canadian systems, including health care, is being recognized. On February 26, 2021, the first Indigenous incoming president of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) stated, “it’s … time to eliminate racism, sexism, ableism, classism and other ‘-isms’ that permeate health system culture” (CMA, 2021, para. 8). These are daily realities for many First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples—ones anchored in a colonial past—and they demand societal change. This vitally includes transformation of the health care system.
In Canadian society today, there is a direct line from the history and experience of colonialism to the challenges of Indigenousspecific racism within the health care system (Turpel-Lafond, 2020). Whether colonization is situated as a defined term of events or as a determinant of Indigenous peoples’ health, it is disastrous, long-lasting, and far reaching in its impacts on the lives of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples. Colonization was and is a calculated attack on the very being of Indigenous peoples as individuals, communities, and Nations. Deeply embedded in the justification of European colonization of other continents was the concept of race, which until the 1500s had not existed as an identifier of people; instead, language and religion had been the distinguishing features. As race-based thinking developed, so too did the notion that colonial states were “civilized” and Indigenous peoples were “savages.” Such an egregious view justified, in the minds of colonizers, the discovery of lands and assertion of rights over them. This resulted in extreme human rights violations and the illegal taking of lands and resources (PAHO, 2019).
Nowhere are the intergenerational impacts of colonialism and racism on Indigenous peoples’ health and well-being more conspicuous than in the inequities experienced by Indigenous peoples across the determinants of health (PAHO, 2019). Indigenous peoples bear a greater burden of disparity on almost all markers of health and well-being compared with the broader Canadian society (de Leeuw et al., 2021). This living legacy of coloniality is not relegated to Indigenous peoples’ individual experiences but rather includes the very structures that underpin the health care system. Despite these disturbing facts, “many Canadians are still unaware that they live in an unjust society and that the colonial institutions they work in systematically marginalize and exclude First Nations, Inuit and Metis peoples” (Greenwood, 2021, p. 2458). Many Indigenous peoples wait as long as they can before they access services because they do not want to subject themselves to the racism of the health care system (TurpelLafond, 2020). As the abovementioned illustrates, racism extends beyond individuals to systems,
Visioning the Future: 25 First Nations, Inuit, & Métis Population and Public Health
