Hope and sorrow felt in Manawan as community members march, 2 years after Joyce Echaquan's death

A toddler bounced on the shoulders of Carol Dubé as he walked down the streets of Manawan to commemorate his late wife and the mother of their seven children, Joyce Echaquan.

On Wednesday, a large crowd of people with purple accessories — Echaquan's favourite colour — marched quietly, save for the chatter of children and jingles on some women's skirts. They carried huge banners decorated with purple hand prints and purple bows, paintings and pictures of Echaquan, that said "Justice for Joyce."

"Seeing all the people, it makes me feel good … I was scared that people would forget her, little by little," Dubé told Radio-Canada.

"It's been two years. It's important to send the message, also, that the problem isn't solved."

Perched high, Carol Jr. looked around and clutched at his father's cap. The toddler is the couple's youngest and was only a few months old when his mother died. 

Two years after filming herself in agony as nurses berated her before her death at 37 years old at Joliette Hospital on Sept. 28, 2020, Echaquan's name continues to resonate across Quebec.

The Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government still refuses to say systemic racism exists in the province, despite a coroner's assessment that it had contributed to her death, but many see what happened to Echaquan as stark evidence that it does. 

Dr. Stanley Vollant, a well-known Innu surgeon from Pessamit who works at Notre-Dame Hospital in Montreal, says his own views changed after her death. 

"I didn't believe my own people and it's not because I wasn't listening to them, but because I thought the system was perfect, was good, that there were just communications issues," Vollant said on CBC Radio's Daybreak.

Vollant said the stories he'd been hearing for years, of Indigenous people experiencing racism in health care, surfaced and made him want to effect change, "to get systemic racism out of the system and to make a culturally safe environment for Indigenous people in the health-care system in Quebec." 

Since then, Vollant has given talks to several Quebec hospitals about the barriers Indigenous people face to get safe access to health care. He says he's noticed an improvement in his colleagues' understanding of Indigenous people, but he says it will take years to build trust. 

"People in communities like Pessamit, like Manawan, don't go to the hospitals close to their homes because they're still afraid they're going to be mistreated," he said. 

Sipi Flamand, the chief of the Atikamekw Council of Manawan, said people in the community have reported that not much has changed in local settler health and social services, but that there has been "an awakening in Quebec society" as a whole.

"I think Quebec is ready to admit there is systemic racism; it's the State that doesn't want to change its position," Flamand said. 

He said the purpose of the commemoration was to "give strength to Carol, to the family, to show the community's mobilization." Last year, on the anniversary of Echaquan's death, a march was held outside the hospital in Joliette.

Issues not 'resolved' 

Earlier this week, a CBC News story revealed the compulsory training Quebec's Health Ministry developed after Echaquan's death includes factual errors and makes no mention of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the Viens Commission or the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

In the first leaders' debate on TVA three weeks ago, CAQ Leader François Legault, who is seeking re-election as premier, prompted outrage from the Echaquan family and Atikamekw chiefs for saying the "problem that happened at the Joliette hospital with Mrs. Joyce is now resolved."

Legault added that he'd met with Dubé and that "it is settled." 

The law firm representing the Echaquan family, including Dubé, issued a sharp rebuke, saying he ran into Legault at the Pope's Quebec visit after the premier had ignored several requests for a meeting. 

"If the premier had taken the time to meet the Echaquan family, or if he had simply taken the time to read the coroner's report … he would have realized that the systemic problems that led to the death of Ms. Echaquan are not 'settled' by mainly esthetic changes," wrote lawyer Pierre Martin-Ménard, adding that to think so was "magical thinking." 

Martin-Ménard said Dubé had only agreed that the appointment of Guy Niquay, who is Atikamekw from Manawan, as assistant CEO of the local health board, the CISSS de Lanaudière, had contributed to some improvements. 

Legault later apologized. 

The family is expected to submit one or several civil suits Thursday related to Echaquan's death, according to Radio-Canada, though it is so far unclear who will be targeted by the legal action.

The Quebec government has yet to adopt Joyce's Principle, a document created by the council of the Atikamekw Nation and the Atikamekw Council of Manawan aimed at guaranteeing that Indigenous people have equitable access to health and social services without discrimination.