Benjamin D. Email & Phone Number

Justice G. Edward has ruled that “First Nations” people legally have a right to their traditional native health care, favoring it over modern medical procedures. Rejecting the hospital’s request that the child be ordered back to the hospital by the local children’s aid society, his decision was roundly applauded by most in the packed courtroom. The judge’s concluding ruling that traditional health care represents an integral portion of the family’s Mohawk culture and as such is protected under the Constitution left those in attendance elated.Citing a provision recognizing “existing aboriginal and treaty rights” generally used to support fishing and hunting rights, Justice Edward stated that the evidence he weighed demonstrated that the girl’s mother is “deeply committed to her longhouse beliefs and her belief that traditional medicines work”. The family’s right to practise traditional medicine is not dependent on the treatments’ proven success as recognized by the “Western medical paradigm”, he ruled. “This is not an eleventh-hour epiphany employed to take her daughter out of the rigors of chemotherapy. Rather it is a decision made by a mother, on behalf of a daughter she truly loves, steeped in a practice that has been rooted in their culture from its beginnings.” Justice G. Edward ... Read More: http://cggrc.org/history