English-speaking community groups welcome support in Quebec budget – with caveats
Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter
editor@qctonline.com
Presenting the Quebec budget on March 25, Finance Minister Eric Girard, who is also the minister responsible for relations with English-speaking Quebecers, announced that the Quebec government would receive $343 million from the federal government over the next four years aimed at funding education and other services for the English-speaking community.
According to the budget, the government plans to invest an additional $10 million over the next five years through the Secretariat for relations with English-speaking Quebecers to improve access to services for the English-speaking community, particularly health and social services, community- based mental health services and legal information.
While they say it’s still early to see how the funding will translate into concrete programs, advocates for access to services in English say they’re optimistic about the fact the funding has been promised.
“I’m happy to say that the government listened to the community and put money into resources the community suggested,” said Jennifer Johnson, executive director of the Community Health and Social Services Network (CHSSN), a Quebec City-based organization which advocates for access to health care in English in the regions.
“Historically, the Canada- Quebec Agreement [involved] a very small transfer from Canadian Heritage to the Quebec Ministry of Health and Social Services. The Quebec government said we’re not interested in doing this much work for this little money. The Secretariat [for relations with the English-speaking community] has worked very hard to make it worthwhile, and they succeeded.”
Johnson said CHSSN will receive a yet-to-be-determined portion of the funding and use it to support community-based mental health services and programs such as the patient navigator program, aimed at making it easier for vulnerable English speakers to access health care in Quebec City, Laval and Gaspé.
“I can say with some confidence that [some funding] will go to local or regional community organizations working in the area of mental health to support their population,” she added.
“Research indicates that people prefer to speak to a health care professional in their mother tongue, because of the personal nature and the emotional component [of those conversations],” Johnson said. “There are very few resources off the island of Montreal to support anglophones, and anglophones do have higher levels of stress associated with lower incomes and difficulty finding jobs to match their skills.”
While the CHSSN and the Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN) said they were pleased with the health funding, other organizations such as the Provincial Employment Round Table (PERT) and Montreal-based Youth Employment Services (YES) expressed alarm at the lack of investment in training and job search services targeted at the English- speaking community.
“There was nothing for employment for English speakers in this budget,” PERT executive director Nicholas Salter told the QCT, noting that for the past many years, unemployment has been higher among anglophones than francophones. In 2022, 8.9 per cent of working- age anglophone Quebecers were unemployed, compared to 7.2 per cent of all Quebecers. “Between 2016 and 2021, the employment gap between anglophones and francophones doubled and there has been no funding to address that. Things are not necessarily getting better.”
(QCT version)