Opinion: Health-care language directive fit for the shredder

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In response to the controversy around the directive on language issued by the Ministry of Health and Social Services, three Quebec government ministers wrote an open letter stating that “the recent directive … does not limit the circumstances under which users have the right to receive health and social services in English. Any suggestion to the contrary is false.”

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I wonder: Have the ministers read the directive in question, which is concerned solely with the exceptional situations when health-care staff will be allowed to speak to patients in a language other than French?

If the situation is as clear as they say, what was the need for a 31-page directive? Why not simply reaffirm what Article 15 of the Act respecting health services and social services states — that “every English-speaking person has the right to receive health services and social services in the English language, in keeping with the organizational structure and human, material and financial resources of the institutions providing such services”?

The directive’s lengthy title belies its complexity. Translated from French: “Directive specifying the nature of situations in which the health and social services network intends to use a language other than French in cases where the provisions of the Charter of the French Language so permit.”

The text of Article 15 is indeed there, on Page 9. However, this clear right is drowned in a host of other considerations that network staff will have a hard time sorting out. The overall message is crystal-clear: Barring “exceptions,” Quebec health and social services organizations will address their patients in French “as soon as possible,” even when the law grants them the option of expressing themselves in “another language.”

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Examples of authorized exceptions are deeply disturbing. For example, when a 14-year-old girl comes to a CLSC for an abortion, accompanied by a friend or aunt, and the person accompanying her doesn’t understand French, “it is permissible” (emphasis added) to give her the documentation needed to follow up the patient in another language. It should be required.

If a young person’s parents request an English translation of a youth protection report, “it is possible” to provide said translation.

English-speaking Quebecers can obtain care exclusively in their own language if they expressly request it, and if they have obtained a declaration of eligibility to receive instruction in English from the Ministry of Education. According to the government, this does not mean that English-speaking patients will have to produce the said declaration. So, then, what does it mean?

The directive also mentions services to Indigenous people. A health care or social care establishment may communicate with them in a language other than French, if the patient so requires. However, the government insists that the organization must “always give priority to the use of Indigenous languages.” English is out!

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As for immigrants, under Bill 96, the possibility of using a language other than French “is applicable only during the six months following” their arrival in Quebec. What happens after six months? It seems that the other language can still be used with the person concerned, but he or she should be given the contact details for Francisation Québec. This is an address that will surely be of great interest to the patient who has suffered a car accident or a stroke!

The directive, signed by “Votre gouvernement” (not available in English on the Health Ministry’s website), is a clear example of the fussy, dehumanizing approach feared when Bill 96, reforming the Charter of the French Language, was adopted. However, a subliminal message emerges clearly: Even if it deals with Quebecers at a time in their life when they are most vulnerable, the health-care system is seeing francizing Quebec added to its primary mission.

In their open letter, the ministers say they are “open to clarifying the directive to make it clear that there will never be language requirements in Quebec to treat a patient.” That is not enough. The directive is a poorly conceived, poorly written document. The government should shred it.

André Pratte is chairperson of the Quebec Liberal Party’s policy committee.

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