CAPHE-ACESS Board statement on working to counter structural racism and oppression

The Board of CAPHE-ACESS acknowledges the ongoing harms to individuals and communities resulting from persisting structural racism and oppression that exists within Canadian society and elsewhere. While we may have become inured to longstanding inequities in the workings of public institutions, the impact of COVID-19 has exposed these oppressive forces in new ways.

Equally, the death of George Floyd at the hands of police officers in Minneapolis, has thrown enduring anti-black racism into stark relief.  It highlighted how structural oppression manifests in particularly egregious ways as racism. This is evident in a long history of injustice in many places, including in Canada.  That history continues as we see new examples of racism. Anti-black racism and anti-Indigenous racism continue in alarming ways. COVID-19 has revealed the extent of anti-Asian racism as well.

Systemic oppression also takes the shape of sexism, ableism, homophobia, ageism and other forms of marginalization, prejudice, and discrimination. It is compounded for those who belong to more than one of them. Addressing structural oppression in the work we do will require meaningful and ongoing work to be able to clearly recognize it around us and understand it from the perspectives of those affected by it.

As the primary objective of CAPHE-ACESS is to more precisely define and standardize the role and practices of healthcare ethicists, we believe the organization has a duty to ensure the products, tools and resources we create do not perpetuate oppressive and racist structures and biases endemic to our society. We recognize this can occur by virtue of our own ignorance of the implicit mechanisms of systemic oppression and racism. We realize that full awareness of the problem and its sources will require ongoing work as an organization and as individuals.

Together with other national health ethics organizations like the Canadian Association of Research Ethics Boards and the Canadian Bioethics Society, we share our own public commitment to identify clear objectives and processes that ensure our work upholds the inherent worth of all human beings. In addition, we must challenge the barriers that prevent people affected by our work to equitably access the benefits and protections we seek for all by applying ethics to healthcare practice.

CAPHE-ACESS Board of Directors, 13 October, 2020