Health Minister Gaétan Barrette says he's sorry if people "misunderstood" remarks he made at community event on Montreal's South Shore that have been criticized by Indigenous leaders as racist.
"I am very, very sorry that some people misinterpreted the comments I made to a citizen who asked me a question," Barrette said at a news conference this morning at Lachine Hospital in west-end Montreal.
"It's too bad. I am really sorry that people are misunderstood what I said."
Barrette's comments relate to a longstanding policy in Quebec that required ill children from northern communities to travel unaccompanied by a parent or caregiver on air ambulance flights to hospitals elsewhere in the province.
After pediatric associations urged the government to end that practice, Barrette announced in February that "the human factor" had compelled him to change the regulation barring parents from accompanying their children on medical evacuation flights.
Asked by a citizen at a community event on Montreal's South Shore why it was taking so long to make that change, Barrette said, in the course of is answer, that parents in remote northern villages could still be barred from accompanying their child on the air ambulance.
"Why? Because no one — agitated, drugged, under whatever influence — would get on the plane at any cost. That will not happen. And that happens all the time," said Barrette, speaking in English.
Listen to a recording of his remarks, obtained by CBC, here:
Asked about those comments today, National Indigenous Peoples Day, Barrette said he had been generally addressing aviation safety rules, which apply to any commercial flight in Canada.
"The simple act of mentioning that rule is not an insinuation [toward] the Indigenous population, who have always supported my policies," he said.
Kuujjuaq mayor refuses apology
Kuujjuaq Mayor Tunu Napartuk, who earlier called for Barrette's resignation over the comments, said the health minister called him after this morning's news conference in Montreal to apologize.
"I don't accept his apology, and I'm still demanding his resignation," he said.
"Mr. Barrette attempted to explain his comments, that they were not necessarily directed toward any specific Aboriginal group. But from what I've heard and what I've read, his comments were about the medical evacuations and the rules and regulations that the government is working on that directly affect the Inuit of Nunavik."
"Therefore, his comments were directed on the Inuit of Nunavik."
Kuujjuaq, just south of Ungava Bay, is a fly-in only community and the administrative capital of Nunavik, Quebec's Inuit territory, with a population of just under 2,800.