Manitoba NDP calls for inquest into man’s death on bus

The leader of Manitoba’s Opposition has called for an inquest into the death of an Indigenous man who died during a 10-hour bus trip for a medical appointment.

Abraham Donkey of Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation was travelling from Thompson to Winnipeg for a followup appointment after a recent heart surgery.

The 58-year-old died on Oct. 3 along Highway 6.

“In a circumstance like this where he was on a bus — alone — and he had just received medical treatment, and was on his way to get further treatment, it certainly raises a lot of questions,” NDP Leader Wab Kinew said Wednesday.

Kinew said neither Manitoba’s Northern Patient Transport Program nor the federal government’s First Nations and Inuit Health Branch offered to pay for a flight and did not cover expenses for a family member to go with Donkey.

Kinew added he spoke with Donkey’s family and they requested a formal investigation with some accountability.

“It seems like a mistake was made in his care, maybe more than one mistake was made, and we need to get the answers to those questions,” Kinew said.

When asked in question period about Donkey’s death, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the Indigenous Services Department is looking into the details.

The department said in an email that it could not discuss details of individual cases, however, flights are approved based on recommendations from the nurses or doctors depending on the medical condition of the client. The normal mode of travel is by bus because it is cheaper.

“We always knew there was going to be bumps along the road, no country has done this to this extent,” Lake said of Canada’s rollout of legalized pot.

“It’s a product like many that are used today for intimate areas of the body, but it should be labelled as such ... obviously there’s a mistake there that needs to be corrected, so we certainly will be following up with them to ensure that the right information is being given to consumers.”

Asked Wednesday by reporters at the Ontario Legislature if the intimate spray is an appropriate product for the province to be selling, Finance Minister Vic Fedeli would only say: “We’ll leave it to the Ontario Cannabis Store to continue to put products out there that the people of Ontario are looking forward to purchasing.”

The 30-millilitre bottle of Fleur de Lune Intimate Spray, which has been approved by Health Canada, sells online for $82.95 and yields about 300 shots of mist.

“The thing about cannabis is that one of the largest areas of concentrations of cannabinoid receptors in the body is in fact the skin,” Lake said Wednesday from Gatineau, Que.

How much of the spray a consumer should use at a given time is an individual decision, he said, “because when it comes to cannabis “everyone is different.”

“So there is no one dose that’s right for any one particular person ... Everybody responds to cannabis in a different way, and it may be because genetically you respond differently. It may be because you haven’t used cannabis before, so you have a different tolerance level.”

That’s why the marijuana industry advises consumers “to start low and go slow,” Lake added. “See how you respond to the low dose and then go up gradually as you understand the effect it’s having on your body.”