The land and waters where we live and work are part of indigenous lands that have always been considered a place of life, encounter and exchange between the W8banaki, Kanien’keà:ka, Innu, Naskapi, Eeyou, Inuit, Wendat , Atikamekw, Anishinaabe, Mi’gmaq and Wolastogiyk and other nations living there today. We are aware of the consequences of colonialism for these lands and waters and are actively working towards their decolonization.

In connection with this approach, we would like to qualify and correct certain comments made by Laurence Niosi in the article Joyce Echaquan: training on indigenous realities denunced, published on the Radio-Canada website, Espaces autochtones, September 26, 2022.

Through a partnership and relational approach, we produced said training together, accompanied by local and non-local specialists. The purpose of this training – commissioned and produced before the death of Joyce Echaquan – is not Ensure cultural safety, ie care with respect for the patient’s culture, to which Laurence Niosis’ article links us. It is crucial to emphasize that our mandate was in no way specifically aimed at health and social care workers, but at all government officials, regardless of their function. It is about one General training on indigenous realities available online for government employees in the public and semi-public sectorsfunded, coordinated and disseminated by the Directorate of Indigenous Relations of the Secretariat for Indigenous Affairs (SAA) in cooperation with the Office of Indigenous Affairs of the Department of Justice (project specifications launched 22 January 2019).

This seven-hour training was designed, produced and evaluated in a two-way process of continuous co-construction. The governance team consists of an executive committee (government and academic officials), an advisory expert committee nominated by eight indigenous organizations including Eeyou (Cree), and an inter-ministerial committee. On May 13, 2019, a first meeting with the Indigenous Expert Committee took place in Odanak to discuss the content and form of the training, the representation of First Nations and Inuit and the role of the advisory body. Several regular exchanges followed to validate the content, the potential participants, the computer graphics, the video montages and the interactive activities.

A range of knowledge

Each module offers a range of skills to better understand Aboriginal reality. The training includes more than 80 video capsules created with participants speaking freely on a specific topic, more than 80% of whom are indigenous people. Almost all of the people contacted accepted the invitation to pass on their knowledge and experience. We would like to thank them once again for their generous contributions.

The training sessions distributed reflect their words: they are at the heart of this project. As of September 29, 2022, around 200,000 government officials took part. The vast majority of the comments received are excellent both in terms of content and form. The training achieved its goal: 94.8% of those who evaluated it felt that it enabled them to become more aware of Aboriginal reality.

The systematic manifestations of the colonial legacy remind us that decolonization and the fight against racism, discrimination and stereotypes towards indigenous peoples is a collective and continuous work.

The tragic and violent death of Joyce Echaquan on September 28, 2020 highlighted the urgent need for specific and focused action by health and social care workers. The general education in question does not have that aspiration: its much broader mandate, let us repeat, is to sensitize government officials to Aboriginal realities. It represents a common core to which other sectoral awareness and cultural security training should be added, particularly in the areas of health, social services, justice and education. The values ​​of respect, listening and integrity that have guided our approach must continue to guide this important work, particularly the creation of new training courses and the updating and continuous improvement of existing ones.

On this sad anniversary of Joyce Echaquan’s death and on the eve of National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, we hope that the explanations in this letter will help better understand the context and scope of this initiative to decolonize the US public and semi-public workplace sectors and the respectful relationships between indigenous people and non-indigenous people that it can foster.