Outaouais

Heritage College says Bill 96 unfair to students

By Trevor Greenway

editor@lowdownonline.com

Some Heritage College students will attend school on a weekend this year to prepare for Quebec’s French-language exit exam, a new requirement for those who don’t hold an English eligibility certificate. 

Heritage College’s academic dean Lisa Peldjak said the school is working on a mock exam for this October, where all non-certificate holders show up on a Saturday to measure themselves against the provincial standard in French. Those who struggle in the exam will have time to improve before the actual exam next spring. 

“This is going to be a real snapshot of what the French exit exam will look like,” said Peldjak. “They’re going to be here all day. It’s mandatory for the students to attend. And it’ll be worth grades. But they’re going to grade it like the French exit [exam] to give the students a taste of what the exam will be like.”

But Heritage’s director-general Terry Kharyati said he has no idea how many of these students will attend this mock exam in October, as the prospect of non-French speakers taking the same exit exam as their francophone counterparts has been a major deterrent for prospective students. 

“All students have the opportunity to feel welcome, first, and the accessibility to what is a great education,” said Kharyati. “But for some who’ve never taken French, it’s ominous. We see that already from students who are coming here from Ontario or who are from the Glebe High School [Ottawa]. If they come here, they’re considered non-anglo because they don’t have their English eligibility rights.”

“We’re recruiting students for basketball. We have students coming over from Ridgemont High School [in Ottawa],” added Kharyati. “But it’s getting more difficult to recruit from Ottawa schools.”

Part of the problem with the English eligibility certificates is that the Ministry of Education will only give them out to students who are currently enrolled in English high schools in Quebec. Those who have already graduated and request a certificate after they’ve graduated are being denied. Those who attend CEGEPs without the certificate will be required to write the province’s three-hour French exit exam, whereas those who hold the certificate will take an English exam.

The new CEGEP rules are part of the CAQ government’s implementation of Bill 96 – the province’s overhaul of the Charter of the French Language, which requires all non-English certificate holders to take the French exam. Bill 96 became Law 14 after it was passed in 2022, affecting how the charter applies to English CEGEPs in the province. Students who do hold English certificates will also have to take three additional French-language courses or three core courses in French, creating a two-tiered system for students. 

Peldjak explained that the college is using incoming high school grades in French, as well as a college assessment, to determine whether or not a student is placed in the advanced French stream. The advanced stream will allow students to take two French as a second language (FSL) courses, two complementary courses in French and one program-specific course in French. Non-advanced stream students will take a total of five FSL courses within their two years at the college. 

“Depending on the student and their level of French, they’re not all coming in being treated fairly or equally,” she said. 

Peldjak noted that students who are required to take the five FSL courses don’t have the option of taking complementary courses, which give them a “highlight into other interests that they might have.” These students, according to Peldjak, miss out on the entirety of other courses the college has to offer. 

The college won’t know how much of a deterrent these new rules will be on the student population until final enrollment numbers are reported in mid-September.

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CISSSO forms new local healthcare committee

Sophie Kuijper Dickson, LJI Reporter

Outaouais’ healthcare provider (CISSSO) has formalized a collaboration agreement with a group of healthcare workers and community partners in the Pontiac to ensure greater local input on matters that affect residents of the region and improve accessibility, continuity and quality of services across the territory.
The group, which CISSSO refers to as a territorial committee, consists of 22 members, including CISSSO’s Pontiac director Nicole Boucher-Larivière.
Available members met at the CLSC in Shawville on Thursday morning to sign the final mandate agreement.
“The idea is that people [on this committee] will have responsibility to make sure we answer to the community and stay accountable to the population,” Boucher-Larivière said, noting the group has been meeting for about a year to determine its mandate.
She explained the committee will be critical in identifying healthcare priorities for the region, brainstorming strategies for developing those priorities, and sharing input on how limited resources should be allocated.
“There have been multiple evolutions of health and social services law so now we’re going back towards proximity,” Boucher-Larivière noted. “It took a certain time but this is the first step we’re taking towards trying to bring that back.”
The Pontiac region is the first in the Outaouais to sign such an agreement with the CISSS de l’Outaouais since services were centralized in 2015.
Josey Bouchard, founding member of local healthcare advocacy group Pontiac Voice, is one of the members of the new territorial committee.
“It’s basically consulting and sharing a little bit of what’s happening here, and if things aren’t working well, to advise on what they can do to try and make it better,” Boucher said, describing what she understands her role on the committee to be.
“I think it’s nice that at least they have our opinion of what’s happening. And hopefully it helps put a little more pressure on whoever is making the decisions.”
But, Bouchard said, she does not expect the collection of community leaders will have any real decision making power.
“As far as power, that I know of, we have none. It’s more of a consulting role.”
“We’re sort of a moral support – it sort of gives [Nicole] a bit more credit as to what she’s bringing forth to the higher ups.”

The committee’s other 21 members are CISSSO board of directors member Rémi Bertrand, Dr. Serge Boucher, Dr. John Wooton, MRC Pontiac warden Jane Toller, MRC Pontiac director general Kim Lesage, Municipality of Pontiac mayor Roger Larose, Pontiac user committee president Jennifer Larose, healthcare advocate Josey Bouchard, Chamber of Commerce president Sébastien Bonnerot, SADC general director Rhonda Perry, seniors’ representative Richard Gratton, Dr. Isabelle Gagnon, Lisa Falasconi from the English school board, Denis Rossignol from the French school service centre, pharmacist Marc Aufranc, Michel Vallières from the Table de développement social du Pontiac, Shelley Heaphy from the Connexions Resource Centre, Bouffe Pontiac director Kim Laroche, Sara-Lynn McCann from Quyon’s Maison de la famille, Karim El Kerch from Carrefour jeunesse-emploi du Pontiac, and Joanne Dubois from CISSSO.
The group plans to meet four times a year.

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CISSSO plans could see summer closure of OR

Sophie Kuijper Dickson, LJI Reporter

Outaouais’s healthcare network, the Centre intégré de santé et de services sociaux de l’Outaouais (CISSSO), has prepared contingency plans to deal with anticipated staffing shortages over the summer that may, in the worst case scenario, see the region’s rural operating rooms shut down, with services moved to Hull and Gatineau hospitals, Le Droit reported last week.
The contingency plans, a copy of which was obtained by Le Droit but which has not yet been seen by THE EQUITY, detail a few different scenarios for the period of June 17 to Sept. 8, to deal with repercussions of greater staffing shortages that may arise when currently employed healthcare workers take their vacations.
These plans map out how CISSSO will reorganize personnel in rural and urban hospitals across its network, which even without the added pressure from summer vacations, is already understaffed.
According to Le Droit, one series of plans addresses various scenarios of shortages in the health network’s imaging sector, and the other series of plans deals with shortages in the network’s operating services.
In the worst case scenario, the Gatineau hospital would offer only limited emergency services, as well as mental health services and long-term care beds, and its entire radiology department could close completely, forcing the relocation of essential services including childbirth, intensive care and pediatrics, to the Hull hospital.
Also in this worst case scenario, the Hull hospital alone would take on the bulk of operations for the 400,000 people in the Outaouais, with operating rooms in Pontiac, Maniwaki and Papineau hospitals shutting down so that staff could be relocated to work in the operating room in the Hull Hospital.
THE EQUITY requested an interview with CISSSO president and CEO Marc Bilodeau on Thursday last week, and has been scheduled to speak with him this Wednesday.
Pontiac officials speak out
Last week provincial and federal elected officials for the Pontiac added their voices to the growing cries for immediate assistance in the Outaouais.
Pontiac MP Sophie Chatel wrote a letter to Quebec’s Minister of Health Christian Dubé and to Minister of Culture and Communication, Mathieu Lacombe, expressing her concerns surrounding the state of health care in the region.
“It is imperative that the Quebec government take urgent measures to prevent a breakdown in healthcare services in our region,” Chatel wrote, in French. “Although health comes under provincial jurisdiction, I would nevertheless like to express the urgency of the situation in the Outaouais.”
Her letter went on to cite several statistics that highlight the urgency of resolving the healthcare staffing shortage across the Outaouais region.
One set of statistics showed that in 2021, lung cancer patients in the region had the lowest survival rate in the province, in large part due to delays in requests for CT scans. She said the situation worsened when magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was discontinued at the Gatineau hospital due to a shortage of technologists.
Chatel pointed to the region’s proximity to Ontario as the leading cause of the staffing shortage, and said while the bonuses offered by the Quebec government to staff in Hull and Gatineau hospitals is appreciated, this initiative needs to be extended to staff in rural hospitals.
“This measure must apply to healthcare staff in hospitals in rural regions of the Outaouais, such as Maniwaki, Buckingham, and Shawville, which are already weakened by the trend towards urbanization and over-specialisation in healthcare in Quebec and Canada,” the letter said.
Pontiac MNA and health critic for the official opposition André Fortin also continued to push for immediate solutions to address the growing crisis in the Outaouais.
“This is not a contingency plan. This is an announced catastrophe. What is the premier going to do about this?” Fortin asked in a question directed to Premier François Legault on May 22, regarding CISSSO’s contingency plans.
Minister of Health Christian Dubé responded to the question, explaining that the ministry asks every healthcare network across the province to come up with contingency plans going into the summer for best and worst-case scenarios.
Minister Dubé said his government is aware of the challenges posed by the competition with Ontario, and will do what it can to improve the situation, without providing specific details as to what immediate measures it would take.
Also last week, Fortin requested the province’s health and social services commission visit the Outaouais so they can see for themselves the urgency with which immediate and greater support from the province is needed.

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Citizen scientists needed to help save endangered turtles

Glen Hartle, LJI Reporter

Why did the turtle cross the road? Because it had to. And that’s a problem.
Road mortality isn’t just an issue for the Sûreté du Québec and the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec. It is also an issue for a raft of organizations representing Mother Nature and they have mobilized in support of their mandate.
An Outaouais environmental organization, the Conseil régional de l’environnement et du développement durable de l’Outaouais (CREDDO), has stepped up and undertaken a four-year project working to mitigate road mortality amongst the turtle populations of the region.
The initiative hopes to protect all turtles, but of particular concern are two species currently on the provincial, national and global endangered species lists: the Blanding’s turtle and the wood turtle. A third species, the northern map turtle, is additionally targeted by the project due to regional and national concerns.
The overall objective of the project, as articulated at its official launch in Sept. 2023, is to reduce the extent of road mortality of turtles in the Outaouais region by prioritizing actions targeting Blanding’s, wood and northern map turtle populations.
More specifically, the goal is to confirm the hotspots of turtle road mortality suggested by available mortality data.
Cénédra Poulin, the activity lead for CREDDO, indicates that while the project officially launched in the summer of 2023, the first phase is about to get under way.
“I think it’s going well so far. We had all the subsidies we asked for and we have a lot of volunteers interested in helping,” Poulin said.
During this initial phase, forecast to last from the middle of May to the middle of July, the project aims to confirm certain road mortality hotspots in the Outaouais through volunteer citizen mortality monitoring in several sectors of the region.
In the Pontiac, the initiative will be specifically focused on busy roadways in the municipalities of Bristol, Clarendon, and Shawville.
“We are searching for people that could spend a few hours per week between mid-May and mid-July, to survey always the same part of a road on a turtle watch,” Poulin said.
Areas of high mortality risk will also be identified, including locations where live turtles are spotted near roads.
“The MRC has a direct role in turtle protection,” said Kari Richardson, MRC Pontiac’s environmental coordinator and its representative for the project. She encouraged residents to report turtle sightings on the Nature Conservancy of Canada portal (https://carapace.ca).
“Once we know exactly where the hot spots are across the Pontiac, we can target awareness efforts, signage and perhaps even fencing, if it is required.”
Subsequent phases of the project will aim to implement measures to reduce road mortality at sites identified as hotspots during the first phase. These mitigation measures will include signage, fencing and wildlife crossings.
Partnering with CREDDO are the Outaouais’ four MRCs (Collines-de-l’Outaouais, Papineau, Pontiac and Vallée-de-la-Gatineau), la Fondation de la Faune du Québec, Nature Conservancy Canada, the National Capital Commission, Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg, the provincial and federal ministries of environment, and le Groupe de rétablissement des tortues du Québec.
From local to global
Locally, the conversation around conservation is ongoing, and turtles have been on the radar before. Regional art association artPontiac hosted a special “Call of the Turtle” exhibit in 2022 drawing attention to their plight and invited several experts from various organizations, including the Nature Conservancy of Canada and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS), to speak at the grand opening.
Provincially, Quebec’s environment ministry indicates that the Blanding’s turtle is considered threatened, meaning that it could disappear in short order. The wood turtle and northern map turtle are considered vulnerable, meaning that survival is considered precarious in the long-term.
At the national level, the Committee on the Status on Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) lists the Blanding’s turtle as endangered, meaning it is facing imminent extirpation (regional extinction) or global extinction. The wood turtle is listed as threatened, meaning that it is likely to become endangered if nothing is done to reverse the factors leading to its extirpation or extinction. The northern map turtle is listed as being of special concern, meaning that it is particularly sensitive to human activities or natural events.
At the global level, the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List (IUCN Red List) lists both the Blanding’s turtle and the wood turtle as endangered. This list of threatened species has evolved to become the world’s most comprehensive information source on the global extinction risk status of animal, fungus and plant species and is a critical indicator of the health of the world’s biodiversity. It is not an honour to appear on the list, rather, it is a call for action.
No matter how you read the above categorizations and classifications, the turtles are in danger, and CREDDO is hoping to change that reality by working with various stakeholders on environmental issues in mounting this conservation effort.
If you would like to be a part of the turtle project, contact cenedra.poulin@creddo.ca or k.richardson@mrcpontiac.qc.ca. Information and social media links can be found at: https://creddo.ca.

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