Knowledge Resources & Publications

Webinar: Structures of Indifference

September 2018

Overview

This webinar, co-hosted by the National Collaborating Centres for Aboriginal Health (NCCAH) and Healthy Public Policy (NCCHPP) is organized for the 10th anniversary of the death of Brian Sinclair, an Anishinaabe man who died after waiting for treatment at Winnipeg's Health Sciences Centre Emergency Room for 34 hours. This will be an opportunity to discuss the story of Brian Sinclair in the context of the history of the city of Winnipeg, and the history of health care in the province of Manitoba, and to critically examine anti-Indigenous racism.

The webinar engaged with the two authors of a new book entitled Structures of Indifference: An Indigenous Life and Death in a Canadian City (University of Manitoba Press, 2018). The book puts the story of Brian Sinclair in the context of the history of the city of Winnipeg, and the history of health care in the province of Manitoba, and critically examines anti-Indigenous racism.

Webinar objectives

By joining us for this webinar, participants will:

  • Learn about the events that led to the 2008 death of Brian Sinclair, who checked in to a hospital emergency room and needed urgent care but was subsequently ignored for 34 hours before he died.
  • Reflect upon how Sinclair's life and death were shaped by the history of colonialism and health care in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and Canada.
  • Consider the structural and systemic anti-Indigenous racism that led to Sinclair's death and shaped responses to it.

Speakers

Mary Jane Logan McCallum is a member of the Munsee Delaware Nation and a professor of history at the University of Winnipeg. Her research focuses on modern Indigenous histories, especially in the areas of health, education and labour. Her book Indigenous Women, Work and History: 1940-1980 (University of Manitoba Press, 2014), explores Indigenous women's labour history in four case studies. Her current work focuses on Indigenous histories of tuberculosis in Manitoba in the years 1930-1970. Themes in her work include race and racism in the English Canadian historical profession, intersectionality, Indigenous social history, ethics and archival research, First Nations women's politics; settler colonialism, racism and Canadian history; anti-Indigenous racism in the health care system, and digitization of Indigenous historical primary sources.

Adele Perry is a settler historian who was born and raised in British Columbia and has taught at the University of Manitoba since 2000, where she is Professor in the departments of History and Gender and Women's Studies, a Senior Fellow at St John's College, and a research affiliate at the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation. Her research addresses histories of gender, race, and colonization in Western Canada in the nineteenth and twentieth-centuries. Perry is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and current president of the Canadian Historical Association.

Webinar resources

 


 

Series of webinars on Public Health Ethics

 

This is the fifth in a series of webinars presented by the NCCHPP in collaboration with our colleagues at the NCCs for public health. This series focuses on combining evidence and ethics to improve decision making in diverse sectors of public health practice. Our goal is to help practitioners to incorporate ethical perspectives into their everyday practices, including longer-term decision-making, with webinars designed to be relevant for practitioners and decision makers in the various areas served by the different NCCs.

 

Webinar, November 2017 - Public Health Ethics and Equity: Naming and Navigating Ethical Issues in Public Health Practice

In this webinar, co-presented by NCCHPP and NCCDH, presenter Dr. Bernie Pauly shared insights drawn from the Equity Lens in Public Health (ELPH) research project into some of the ethical issues practitioners face in addressing health inequities in public health practice, as well as some means for navigating these issues within health organizations.

Description | PowerPoint | Recording

 

Webinar, February 2017 - Priority-setting in Public Health: Evidence and Ethics in Decision-making

In this webinar, co-presented by NCCHPP and NCCMT, and featuring Dr. Megan Ward from Peel Public Health, participants discussed the evidence and ethics of a case involving choosing among interventions in order to best respond to public health priorities.

Description | PowerPoint | Recording

 

Webinar, January 2017 - Public Health Ethics: A Case in Infectious Disease Prevention and Control

In this webinar, co-presented by NCCHPP and NCCID, participants discussed the evidence and ethics of a case involving the use of point-of-care testing to expand access to diagnostic technologies for infectious disease in remote or northern communities.

Description | PowerPoint | Recording

 

Webinar, November 2016 - Public Health Ethics: A Case in Environmental Health

In this webinar, co-presented by NCCHPP and NCCEH, participants discussed the evidence and ethics of a case involving radon.

Description| PowerPoint | Recording