The coroner’s report on the preventable death of Atikamekw woman Joyce Echaquan at a hospital in Joliette, Que., Last year is a long and illustrated definition of “systemic racism.” He describes a system that works on implicit assumptions (this Indigenous woman is restless, maybe she’s doing drugs) and differential treatment (let’s just tie her to the bed; no need to give her options), which he says Coroner Géhane Kamel, led to the death of Ms. Echaquan.

The same forces of structural discrimination and prejudice killed a 45-year-old man Brian Sinclair from Sagkeeng First Nation, who languished in a Winnipeg emergency room for 34 hours with a treatable infection in 2008. And they explain why staff at a nursing home in the Northwest Territories assumed that Aklavik’s eldest Hugh Papik was drunk when he actually had a massive stroke in 2016.

Individual anti-native acts racism has certainly contributed to every outcome. But nurses don’t laugh at patients screaming in pain without someone intervening, as happened in Ms Echaquan’s case, unless prejudice and racism have crept into the walls.

And yet, Quebec Premier François Legault refused to give in to the coroner’s conclusion that systemic racism contributed to Ms. Echaquan’s death. His intransigence is strange, not only because the evidence presented in Ms. Kamel’s report is so unequivocal, but because the remedies instituted by Mr. Legault’s government are clearly systemic in nature. Indeed, there would be no reason to introduce compulsory awareness training for all employees of the Joliette hospital, or to appoint a representative of the community of Manawan to the board of directors of the health authority. who oversees the hospital, if it was just a few dishonest nurses. .

Clearly, Mr. Legault understands that there is a systemic problem in Quebec’s health care system, but the expression “systemic racism” is for the Prime Minister this. Macbeth is for theater actors: you can’t say it out loud.

For Mr. Legault, this goes beyond the usual political stubbornness. The Prime Minister has largely succeeded in building a new brand of Quebec nationalism, which is less a question of traditional sovereignty than of autonomy within Canada, of protection of the French language and of a collectivist and shared identity for Quebecers. His government introduced Bill 96, which seeks to amend the Constitution Act of 1867 to recognize that “Quebecers form a nation”. During the recent federal election campaigns, Mr. Legault also made party leaders give in to his demand to let the province control its immigration program and succeeded in making Conservative leader Erin O’Toole promise to respect the “system. separate ‘from Quebec child care.

Mr. Legault’s popularity with Quebeckers – which has plummeted last month but has nonetheless remained remarkably high throughout the pandemic – is rooted in this unabashed nationalist pride and perceived control over the players in Ottawa. And he has made progress in the perpetual struggle for Quebec to be recognized as a distinct society within Canada.

But to admit that the province’s health care system is systematically racist, even in response to a coroner’s report that roughly explains it, is to give in to the idea that Quebec’s distinct society is a broken society. It’s off the mark for Mr. Legault. He couldn’t say it after the 2019 Come Commission report was tabled – and he still can’t say it now.

The other obstacle for Mr. Legault to state the obvious is that it would be somewhat contradictory for the Prime Minister to recognize systemic racism in health care in Quebec while defending the law, Bill 21, which enshrined systemic racism in law with respect to public sector hiring and employment practices. Mr. Legault knows that banning people in certain jobs from wearing religious symbols is unconstitutional, which is why his government preemptively invoked the notwithstanding clause when it introduced the bill. And it is undeniable that the law disproportionately affects certain groups of people – such as Muslim teachers who wear the hijab – which makes this state-imposed policy of secularism not universally oppressive but systematically discriminatory.

Anyone with eyes and minimal reading comprehension skills would walk away from Ms Kamel’s report with an understanding of how systemic racism contributed to Ms Echaquan’s death. Mr. Legault has both, but he also has a trademark to protect. And as long as this brand thrives on the Prime Minister’s shameless nationalism and lack of soul-searching, the words “systemic racism” will not leave his lips.

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