https://www.cna-aiic.ca/fr/blogs/ic-contenu/2026/09/28/en-memoire-de-joyce-echaquan
September 28, 2026
Today, the Canadian Nurses Association (CNA) honours the life and memory of Joyce Echaquan, an Atikamekw woman and mother of seven. We extend our respect and solidarity to her family, the Atikamekw Nation, and First Nations, Inuit and Métis Peoples across the country who continue to carry the grief and consequences of this preventable tragedy.
Six years ago, at the Centre hospitalier régional de Lanaudière, Joyce’s final moments exposed the devastating consequences of anti-Indigenous racism in health care. Remembering Joyce must mean more than reflection. It must compel sustained action to dismantle the policies, practices, and systems that continue to deny First Nations, Inuit and Métis Peoples culturally safe, equitable and dignified care.
CNA reaffirms its strong support for Joyce’s Principle, which affirms the right of Indigenous Peoples to equitable, discrimination-free access to health and social services and to the best possible physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health. Joyce’s Principle also recognizes and respects Indigenous Peoples’ traditional and living knowledge, medicines, healing practices, cultural identities and inherent rights. Indigenous Peoples, families and communities must be recognized as leaders and partners in decisions about their health, care and well-being.
CNA stands in solidarity with the Office of Joyce’s Principle and supports its Indigenous-led efforts to mobilize concrete commitments, strengthen cultural safety, and transform health and social services for Indigenous Peoples.
CNA’s commitment to reconciliation is guided by The 4 Streams of Reconciliation: CNA’s Action-Oriented Framework: accountability, advocacy, anti-racism and allyship. Truth must come before reconciliation. The nursing profession must understand and acknowledge its historical and ongoing role in colonial systems.
CNA will continue to work with First Nations, Inuit and Métis nurses, health leaders and partners to advance measurable, system-level change. Providing culturally safe care requires a lifelong commitment to learning, unlearning, self-reflection and accountability.
On this anniversary, CNA calls on every regulated nurse, including nurse practitioners, to honour Joyce Echaquan through action. Nurses have an ethical responsibility to provide high-quality, safe care, uphold the health-related Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, and be guided by Joyce’s Principle.
This means confronting anti-Indigenous racism, practising cultural humility, addressing power imbalances, and providing strengths-based, trauma-informed care that builds on each person’s knowledge, resilience and capacity. Cultural safety is defined only by the person receiving care.
Nurses must listen, build respectful relationships, support Indigenous-led approaches, and use their influence to amplify, not speak for, the voices of First Nations, Inuit and Métis Peoples. Joyce’s memory calls on us to move beyond reflection to action by co-creating health systems where Indigenous Peoples exercise self-determination, experience true cultural safety, and receive the respectful and equitable care that is their inherent right.