Mother tells Quebec inquest she can’t fathom how her son could die in the cold

By The Canadian Press  05/06/2024  More than three years after her son’s death, Suzanne Chemaganish still can’t understand how he could have been allowed to die in the cold outside a homeless shelter in a big city like Montreal. Chemaganish told a coroner’s inquest on Wednesday her son Raphael André grew up in the woods with his Innu family in northern Quebec and was used to cold weather. She said that in her village, people aren’t left outside in winter. “In our community, it’s cold,” she said. “When someone knocks, we open the door and let them in.” Coroner Stéphanie Gamache is presiding over the inquest into the death of André, who was originally from Matimekush-Lac John, near the Labrador boundary. He was 51 when he died in January 2021…

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