{"id":7018,"date":"2020-09-29T14:45:56","date_gmt":"2020-09-29T18:45:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rcentres.qc.ca\/2020\/10\/01\/justice-for-joyce\/"},"modified":"2020-10-06T09:50:32","modified_gmt":"2020-10-06T13:50:32","slug":"justice-for-joyce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rcentres.qc.ca\/en\/justice-for-joyce\/","title":{"rendered":"Justice for Joyce"},"content":{"rendered":"

Call to Action. L\u2019R des centres de femmes du Qu\u00e9bec invites you to use all or excerpts of this letter to call on your local MNAs and demand an end to systemic racism in Qu\u00e9bec. For more information: pharand-dinardo@rcentres.qc.ca. For updates, follow the Quebec Native Women page on Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Montreal, September 29, 2020\u00a0<\/p>\n

To the Honourable Premier Fran\u00e7ois Legault,\u00a0<\/p>\n

We call on you today in response to the criminal negligence of nurses at Joliette hospital that led to the death of Joyce Echaquan. This negligence demonstrates once again the pervasiveness of the social injustices rooted in the province\u2019s public institutions. Murder is inadmissible. Urgent action must be taken. Joyce Echaquan died alone, tied to a hospital bed. The systemic racism rooted in the province\u2019s public services indeed led to the criminally negligent actions of hospital staff.<\/p>\n

The Qu\u00e9bec government can no longer ignore the injustices to which people of colour are subjected in our institutions. This holds all the more true today, a year minus a day after the release of the report by the Public Inquiry Commission on relations between Indigenous Peoples and certain public services in Qu\u00e9bec. Without a shadow of a doubt, Joyce Echaquan lost her life because she was an Indigenous woman. The racism coming from the mouths of the nurses on staff caught on video by Joyce herself hours prior to her death attest to it.<\/p>\n

These events open up a great many questions. Much like the murders of black men and women by police, it is deplorable that the murder of Indigenous women must be caught on video to be given credence. How many Indigenous women die in the shadows without any kind of justice being served? The systemic racism that pervades our institutions not only kills those who are marginalized; it also makes justice inaccessible to them. If there is to be any justice for Joyce\u2019s death, those involved must be held responsible for their crimes to the full extent of the law. Seeking justice for Joyce also means ensuring that the inquiry into her death is duly independent and free of bias. It also means recognizing the existence of institutional violence, revising institutional practices and processes that allow this type of violence to exist, and ensuring that all Indigenous women and women of colour who are made victims of these kinds of abuses have equal and safe access to the justice system. As outlined in the \u201cCalls for Justice<\/a>\u201d issued by the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, it is imperative that Indigenous communities be truly granted justice.<\/p>\n

Demands<\/h3>\n

Premier Legault, the time has come to uphold your responsibilities and put an end to the violence perpetrated by state employees. The Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms<\/a> tells us that \u201cEvery human being has a right to life, and to personal security, inviolability and freedom\u201d and also tells us that they \u201calso possesses juridical personality.\u201d As basis tenets of the society in which we all live, you are bound to uphold and defend these rights and freedoms.<\/p>\n

As such, we support the demands made by Joyce\u2019s family, by the Manawan community, and by the FAQ-QNW (Qu\u00e9bec Native Women). We demand that systemic racism be formally acknowledged by the Qu\u00e9bec government. We also demand that the Qu\u00e9bec government immediately implement the demands made by these parties. We also insist that there be justice for Joyce Echaquan. Her death must serve as an example for each and every member and employee of the state\u2019s medical system. We support the firing of the nurse having caused Joyce\u2019s death as well as the launch of an inquiry by the CISSS and the coroner but remind you that there cannot be two systems of justice. Murder is murder. Therefore, we demand that the nurses and staff of Joliette hospital responsible for Joyce Echaquan\u2019s death be arrested and brought to trial.<\/p>\n

The Executive Committee of L\u2019R des centres de femmes du Qu\u00e9bec,<\/p>\n

Diane Messier, President and representative for Lanaudi\u00e8re
\nGenevi\u00e8ve Legault, Vice President
\nGayl Rhicard, Treasurer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Call to Action. L\u2019R des centres de femmes du Qu\u00e9bec invites you to use all or excerpts of this letter to call on your local MNAs and demand an end to systemic racism in Qu\u00e9bec.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":6993,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[111],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rcentres.qc.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rcentres.qc.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rcentres.qc.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rcentres.qc.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rcentres.qc.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rcentres.qc.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rcentres.qc.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rcentres.qc.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rcentres.qc.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rcentres.qc.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}