Inuit class-action lawsuit to allege racism in Canada's health-care system

Lawyers known for their representation of Indigenous northerners are preparing a class-action lawsuit on behalf of Inuit who have faced discrimination in Canada's health-care system.

If the lawsuit proceeds, it is expected to seek hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.

The civil suit would represent Inuit discriminated against while in care in southern facilities outside Nunavut, and in some cases the Northwest Territories. The suit may expand to include discrimination in theQikiqtani General Hospital in Iqaluit, and could include First Nations and Mtis claimants.

"Racism is alive and well and always was in Canada," said lawyer Steven Cooper in a CBC interview.

"It may be a little less obvious and a little less frequent than we see in places like the United States."

But Cooper said this treatment of Inuit by government andhealth-care representatives "is nothing new."

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Cooper Regal lawyers, members of Masuch Law LLP, have won high-profile cases in the North. Most recently, they were legal counsel for Nunavut Ahiarmiut, who won a cash settlement and apology from the federal government over their forced relocation decades ago.

But Cooper said this lawsuit is inspired by accounts of contemporary discrimination.

"We're talking right now, right here," he said.

Examples of discrimination collected include the horrific. In one case, Cooper described a five-month-old aborted fetus being "cut up and thrown away in sight of the mother."

"The fact that is happening now in Canada is a problem and it screams for legal attention," Cooper said.

"It screams for condemnation and this is a really good example of where class actions are used not only to redeem the parties in terms of what they've already done but to be a reason why governments and institutions change their behaviour."

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Hundreds expected to tell their stories

Cooper said so far dozensof people have come forward to share their stories, but he expects the number to climb into the hundreds once word of the lawsuit gets out.

It will be a few months, he said, before anything is filed in court. Potential representative claimants have been identified, as have potential defendants in the case.

"It will involve the government of Canada," Cooper said in an email. "It may also involve a number of provincial governments administering health care under contract to either the territory, Canada or both, and it may include health-care institutions who employed those who we say participated in discriminatory delivery of services."

Cooper said it's too early to say definitively the lawsuit will proceed.

"Establishing the circumstance of class action do not always mean that the class action will proceed [and] if it does proceed, whether in fact it will be certified."

Cooper's law office is now looking for stories of discrimination in health care experienced by Inuit inside or outside Nunavut.

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