CMA apology a first step toward healing medical harms against Indigenous people, advocates say

Advocates are optimistic about a historic apology for harms experienced by Indigenous people in health care — but they say those harms are not "remote parts of history."

"Harms from racism in the medical profession continue today and they continue with ourselves, with our relatives, with our community members," said Dr. Marcia Anderson, vice-dean of Indigenous health, social justice and anti-racism at the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba.

Forced and coerced sterilization, medical experimentation and child apprehensions are documented parts of the health-care profession's harmful effects on Indigenous communities, and recent cases like those of Brian Sinclair and Joyce Echaquan have kept the issue in sharp focus.

Dr. Alika Lafontaine was the first Indigenous president of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA), and served in the role from 2022 to 2023. He was born and raised in Treaty 4 territory in southern Saskatchewan and has Métis, Oji-Cree and Pacific Islander ancestry.

After years of internal work — going through more than 150 years of documents and archives to identify racist and outdated language and practices — he sought to change the way Indigenous health care is delivered.

To him, this starts with the truth.

Lafontaine led the association, in September, to an official apology, presented by current CMA President Dr. Joss Reimer, for its role in harms against Indigenous people in the health-care system.

"For the first time, a national medical advocacy association with the gravitas that the CMA has is going to say these things happened," Lafontaine told Unreserved host Rosanna Deerchild.

"It decreases the threshold of how hard people have to work in order to be heard."

The apology acknowledged the harmful impacts of certain medical treatments, including sterilization and experimentation, in addition to the Indian hospital system — segregated hospitals, which isolated Indigenous patients and created lasting trauma.

While Anderson — who is Cree Anishinaabe with family roots in Norway House Cree Nation and Peguis First Nation — has heard stories from family members who have experienced harm in the health-care system, she has also witnessed them herself. 

In her first year of medical school, she spent a summer in Nunavut. There, Anderson saw a young Inuk mother who was concerned about infertility.

After reviewing her chart, Anderson realized she had an IUD — a semi-permanent form of contraception.

"She was really surprised. She did not have any knowledge of having this IUD in. It was clear to me then that she had not given informed consent," said Anderson.