enweyin Volume VII, 2002-2003 The Health Status of Aboriginal Peoples in Canada: Reflection, Realization and Response Sam Grey “[A] great many people have little access to health care […] and spend their lives fighting unnecessary morbidity” (Sen, 1999:15). To Nobel-laureate Amartya Sen, this is a fundamental form of ‘unfreedom.’ To many Aboriginal 1 people, it is a characteristic of contemporary existence within the boundaries of Canada. Because the health status of Native people has continued to register as inequitably poor, despite the existence of socialized medicine and a proliferation of government health programs, claims that a simple increase in health services or a reorganization of the health care budget will have a positive impact are no longer sensible. And with Indigenous peoples bearing a disproportionate amount of excess and premature morbidity and mortality, such claims are no longer ethical. Historical Background [I]ndigenous peoples of the Americas knew many cures for illnesses long before medicine in Europe became a science (Colomeda and Wenzel, 2000:247). Before the arrival of Europeans in North America, “there were already in existence various Aboriginal medical systems, each with its theories of disease causation, its categories of practitioners, and its diagnostic and therapeutic techniques” (Waldram et al., 2000:261). In these systems, “[m]edicine was closely integrated with other aspects of Aboriginal culture and was often indistinguishable from spirituality” (Waldram et al., 2000:261). Many principles employed by Native people were a revelation to, and have subsequently been empirically validated by biomedicine. Although willing to adopt and 1 For the purposes of this paper the words “Native,” “Indigenous,” and “Aboriginal” will be used interchangeably. The term “Aboriginal” is used in Canada to include Indians, Métis and Inuit (per the Constitution Act of 1982), while the term “Indigenous” is more commonly used in international treaties and agreements, (e.g. the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity). The term “First Nations” refers specifically to status Indians. Quotations are an exception to this; the work of other authors is, naturally, their own.