Montreal vigil to honour the memory of Joyce Echaquan, four years after her death
Posted September 28, 2024 11:54 am.
A rally in memory of Joyce Echaquan will be held in downtown Montreal at Place du Canada on Saturday.
The rally is intended to honour Echaquan’s courage, support Indigenous Peoples’ rights in health care and advocate for Joyce’s Principle, according to a press release from The Caring for Social Justice Collective.
Echaquan, a 37-year-old Atikamekw woman, revealed to Quebec on Sept. 28, 2020, the treatment she was receiving at the Joliette hospital through a Facebook live video in which she was heard being insulted by facility employees shortly before her tragic death.
The coroner ruled in her report concerning the causes and circumstances of Echaquan’s death, filed in September 2021, that “the racism and prejudice Joyce Echaquan faced certainly contributory to her death.” The report concludes, however, that the death was accidental.
The rally is also advocate for Joyce’s Principle aims to guarantee to all Indigenous people the right of equitable access, without any discrimination, to all social and health services.
The Quebec government does not recognize systemic racism, and has not adopted the Principle.
