Justice for Joyce Echaquan

 

There is a coroner's inquiry underway in Quebec into the death of hospital patient Joyce Echaquan. Joyce was 37-years-old, a mother of several children, and a person with lots of health problems. She was also Indigenous and this was likely a strong factor in her death. Despite her pleas for help she was mocked and scolded by nurses until she died. Yesterday there was expert testimony which said that despite her medical conditions if she had been medically treated properly she would have lived. The nurses were fired and may face criminal prosecution, but Joyce is dead, her husband and children bereft.

How does this anti-Indigenous racism occur again and again in Canada, a country which prides itself on justice and equality? This is a wonderful country in which to live, unless you are Indigneous...or Black...or a Person of Colour...

Today we hear that the remains of more than 200 Indigenous children have been detected by radar on the grounds of a Residential School in British Columbia. Some of those children, abducted from their families, were as young as three. For the longest time governments insisted that the deaths of children were rare, but this was a lie. The Canadian government choked on admitting that it was involved in genocide, but else would we call what transpired for over a century in Residential Schools? This school in Kamloops was one of many run by the Roman Catholic church but others were under the authority of several different denominations, including the United Church. 

                                                              Residential School Classroom 

Look to the news and you'll find stories of ongoing protests by Indigenous people over land claims and simmering disputes over fishing rights in Atlantic Canada. 

In the past few days a First Nations hockey player for the Edmonton Oilers has responded to a wave of vile, racist comments on social media.

Indigenous communities await decades-old promises for clean drinking water. 

The federal government is close to passing legislation (Bill-C-15) which brings Canada into the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, but this has been a shamefully slow process and there are concerns that it isn't strong enough. 

We keep saying that we want Truth and Reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. . Governments and Christian denominations make their apologies. Yet many of these examples are from the present, not the past. God, help us repent in ways that matter.