![\"Dr.](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/dr-stanley-vollant.jpg\")
Dr. Stanley Vollant says he’s a patient man and will wait to see more change in Quebec’s public systems. (Olivier Lalande\/Radio-Canada)<\/p>\nDr. Stanley Vollant was waiting for a family member in the emergency room at the Chicoutimi hospital in August when he saw two signs \u2014 one in Atikamekw and the other in Innu.<\/p>\n
It included the numbers of the navigator and liaison personnel for Indigenous patients.<\/p>\n
For Vollant, it was a sign of progress.<\/p>\n
About 20 years ago \u2014 when he first started his career as a physician \u2014- Vollant says he “never would have seen that.”<\/p>\n
“There’s positive changes,” said Vollant, Quebec’s first Indigenous surgeon and board member for Sant\u00e9 Quebec.<\/p>\n
“I’m a patient man and we are patient people.”<\/p>\n
He refers to the health-care system as a mammoth and big ship \u2014 something that “takes a lot of time to turn.”<\/p>\n
For decades, he’s been among the advocates pushing for change, urging for better understanding and the need for reconciliation with Indigenous people.<\/p>\n
Dr. Stanley Vollant says he’s a patient man and will wait to see more change in Quebec’s public systems. (Olivier Lalande\/Radio-Canada)<\/p>\n
“For many people, it’s not clear. There’s still a lot of fog around this notion of reconciliation,” said Alexandre Bacon, the founder of Ashukan Institute, an e-learning platform focused on Indigenous realities.<\/p>\n
His organization tries to answer the question of why reconciliation is needed, emphasizing “there’s so much more we should or could know about each other.”<\/p>\n
Since 2021, his firm has trained thousands across universities, corporations and government departments to improve their relations with Indigenous people, says Bacon.<\/p>\n
He sees this training as a means for progress and a key step toward achieving the goals outlined in the 2019 Viens Commission report published six years ago.<\/p>\n
![\"Alexandre](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/alexandre-bacon.jpg\")
Alexandre Bacon, pictured in 2021, says the idea of reconciliation is still unclear for many people. (Radio-Canada)<\/p>\n
The 520-page damning report<\/a> into the treatment of Indigenous people in Quebec’s public services included 142 calls to action from retired Superior Court Justice Jacques Viens.<\/p>\n While the government has announced millions of dollars<\/a> in funding to support Indigenous people, many say there is still more to do, especially when it comes to its recommendations.<\/p>\n In 2023, ombudsman Marc-Andr\u00e9 Dowd found that less than a third of the calls to action laid out in the commission have been implemented or are progressing as expected.<\/p>\n Years later, advocates say awareness is growing, but it’s not necessarily because of progress on the part of the Quebec government.<\/p>\n Police misconduct investigation sparks commission<\/p>\n The Viens commission was originally tasked with investigating discrimination and violence following allegations of police misconduct in Val-d’Or, Que, in 2016.<\/p>\n An investigation by Radio-Canada<\/a> found that officers routinely picked up women who appeared to be intoxicated, drove them out of town and left them to walk home in the cold. Some women alleged they were physically assaulted or made to perform sex acts.<\/p>\n Over a period of nine months, Viens recorded testimony about mistreatment and abuse.<\/p>\n One of the critical\u00a0areas that the commissioner emphasized was the policing situation in northern Quebec.\u00a0<\/p>\n One of the 142 calls to action in 2019 included the establishment of mixed patrols involving both Indigenous and non-Indigenous authorities in the region.<\/p>\n Lukasi Whiteley-Tukkiapik, executive director of Saqijuq, says this type of solution was needed. He helped launch the non-profit organization’s second mobile intervention team (MIT) in Kuujjuaq in August.<\/p>\n Working alongside police, he says social workers are there to offer support for calls relating to domestic violence, psychosocial crisis, or one where children might be unattended, for example.<\/p>\n “It’s going to be [possible] for the police officers to see the side of the community as well to help them with their image too \u2026. It’s making a difference already,” said Whiteley-Tukkiapik, Inuk from Kuujjuaq.<\/p>\n The region has been marked by several police-related incidents this year, with statistics from the provincial police watchdog suggesting the rate of fatal shootings by police officers in Nunavik is roughly 73 times higher than the Quebec average.<\/a><\/p>\n At the time of his report, Viens said improvements are needed across the spectrum in policing, health and social services, corrections, justice and youth protection.<\/p>\n In 2023, ombudsman Dowd noted in his progress report<\/a> the absence of overall strategy by the Quebec government, fragmented initiatives and insufficient substantive planning.<\/p>\n Ian Lafreni\u00e8re, the minister responsible for relations with the First Nations and Inuit, spoke with Dowd last week, according to an emailed statement from Lafreni\u00e8re’s office.<\/p>\n For him, he says he isn’t just hoping to “check off boxes.”<\/p>\n We’re not fulfilling our duty: director of Joyce’s Principle<\/p>\n Two years ago, Dowd found out of 34 calls for action concerning health and social services<\/a>, only one had been implemented, nine were progressing as expected and 24 had not generated any satisfactory outcomes.<\/p>\n In the 160-page report, he wrote Quebec’s Health Ministry “is more often reactive than preventive when it comes to intervening in discriminatory situations, including those arising from systemic discrimination.”<\/p>\n He said participating in initiatives at the federal level or formally adopting guidelines and rules such as Joyce’s Principle<\/a> and Jordan’s Principle<\/a> are “solutions that tend to be shelved or that are given a lukewarm reception.”<\/p>\n Joyce’s Principle was born shortly after the death of Joyce Echaquan \u2014 an Atikamekw woman who died in 2020 moments after she recorded footage of herself in hospital as health-care staff hurled racist remarks at her.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/viens-commission.jpg\")
The commission made stops throughout the province over a period of nine months to gather testimony. (Marc-Antoine Mageau\/Radio-Canada)<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/jennifer-petiquay-dufresne.jpg\")
Jennifer Petiquay-Dufresne says she continues to receive emails from Indigenous patients describing troubling encounters in the province’s health-care system. (Marie-Laure Josselin\/Radio-Canada )<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/carol-dube.jpg\")
Carol Dub\u00e9 stands with a photo of his late partner Joyce Echaquan on Sept. 28, 2021, a year after her death. (Ivanoh Demers\/CBC)<\/p>\n