Published August 7, 2024

By Trevor Greenway

A new health directive from the CAQ government suggests that “historic anglophones” will have to supply an eligibility certificate to receive medical care in English. 

The new directive, unveiled last week under the heading of “oral and written” communication, states that historic anglophones must meet two criteria in order to receive communication from a health network exclusively in English. 

The two criteria include:

• They have been “issued the document Déclaration d’admissibilité à recevoir l’enseignement en anglais du ministère de l’Éducation du Québec,” otherwise known as the English-language eligibility certificate;

• They must also “expressly request (English services).”

Historic anglophones are Quebec residents who have received English education in Canada or those whose parents were educated in English. The government already requires anglophone students to produce eligibility requirements to attend English CEGEPs. The other possibility is if Quebec anglophones can prove that prior to May 13, 2021 they had corresponded “only in English” with a health network institution regarding their medical file, and the institution is able to confirm this English-only correspondence before that date.

The suggestion of an eligibility requirement for anglophones is part of the CAQ government’s 31 pages of directives outlining when health professionals are permitted to speak English to patients in hospitals and clinics throughout the province. 

Health watchdog Vigi Santé spokesperson Marcel Chartrand called these directives “extremely disappointing.”

“My concern is with the delay in providing care. To me, that is crucial,” he told the Low Down. “If you are not well, every delay will just exacerbate your situation.” It has also proven difficult for anglophones to receive English certificates for CEGEP acceptance, as a backlog in the province has caused major delays and forced thousands of students to miss months of school at the beginning of last year. 

Chartrand said he worries about anglophone residents not being able to get basic health information from local CLSCs. 

The facility in Masham does not have official bilingual status. Chartrand said his organization recently dropped off some English flyers at the Masham clinic, but after someone complained to the Office québécois de la langue française (OLF), the flyers were removed from the racks. 

“We had a flyer listing all the services and the phone numbers that someone could access for citizen services – senior services, vaccinations,” said Chartrand.

“Now you cannot find anything in the CLSC that is written in the English language,” said Chartrand. “You have to ask for it. That’s how far the law goes now; it’s crazy.”

Chartrand did confirm that the Wakefield Hospital does have official bilingual status, but critics across the province aren’t convinced that a bilingual status will guarantee English services at hospitals or clinics. 

Montreal lawyer and chair of the Coalition for Quality Health and Social Services Eric Maldoff told the Montreal Gazette that, under Bill 96, the province’s overhaul of the Charter of the French Language, the new directives would also apply to bilingual hospitals. 

Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN) director-general Sylvia Martin-Laforge told the Low Down that her organization even met with Minister Responsible for Relations with English-speaking Quebecers Eric Girard a month ago and was assured that access to English healthcare would not change for anglophones. 

“[Girard] was saying, ‘There’s no problem, don’t worry,’” Martin-Laforge recalled. “How can anyone say ‘don’t worry’ when they are imposing these directives on the healthcare sector?”

The QCGN is calling for a full exemption from Bill 96 in the health and social services sector. 

The MNA for this riding, Robert Bussière, has repeatedly ignored calls from our newspaper on this issue. 

List of official bilingual hospitals and clinics in the Outaouais

CLSC de Chapeau

CLSC de Mansfield-et-Pontefract

CLSC d’Otter-Lake

CLSC de Quyon

CLSC de Rapides-des-Joachims

CLSC et centre de services externes pour les aînés de Shawville

Hôpital du Pontiac

Hôpital Mémorial de Wakefield/Wakefield Memorial Hospital

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