Roberge pledges new health-care language directive after meeting anglo groups

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The Quebec government will issue a new directive on the use of languages other than French in the health-care system in an effort to assuage fears in the province’s English-speaking community, Quebec’s language minister said Tuesday, after meeting with several organizations serving anglophones.

Minister of the French Language Jean-François Roberge said the new wording of the directive is intended to be clearer and to reassure people who feared they could be denied health care in English, but that the existing directive will remain in force until the updated version is ready.

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“There were huge misunderstandings; we never did change our policy. Health care and social services are accessible for the English-speaking community, no questions asked. They don’t have to show any documents, any certificates at all,” Roberge said in an interview Tuesday.

The directive, released last month, said only those who were grandfathered in, or who had a government certificate attesting to the fact that they had the right to English-language education in Quebec, would be entitled to communicate “exclusively” in English with the province’s health-care system and laid out a number of scenarios where people would be allowed to use languages that aren’t French — including English — for health reasons.

“We are coming with a new way to formulate it, with new wording, which will be more clear that you don’t have to have your life at risk” to receive services in English, he said, adding that people can receive care in English for any health concern.

Roberge said he met Tuesday with a provincial committee on social services and health care; Seniors Action Quebec; 211 Montreal; the Cummings Centre, a community centre for adults over 50 in Montreal; as well as committees from Jeffery Hale — Saint Brigid’s, a Quebec City health-care institution serving the English community, to discuss the directive.

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Several prominent anglophone organizations weren’t present at the meeting, whose participants weren’t publicly announced until after it took place

The Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN) said it wasn’t initially invited, and declined a last-minute invitation because Health Minister Christian Dubé wouldn’t be present. The Community Health and Social Services Network, a Quebec City-based organization that supports access to health and social services in English, said it was invited, but decided not to attend the meeting because it didn’t meet the expectations of community leadership.

Roberge said that during the meeting he heard concerns that people wouldn’t be able to access English-language health care without some sort of document and that some elements of the directive appeared to differ from page to page.

He said he sought to reassure those organizations that access to English-language health care will be maintained.

“I think it was a good meeting, because it was important for me and members of the government to hear it directly from them and to hear what was unclear for them in the directive, so we can do a better job when we come with another directive,” he said.

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Asked by The Gazette why the government would put out a directive with 23 pages of rules, scenarios and criteria for evaluating when languages other than French could be used if it didn’t change anything, Roberge said the document was intended to protect the rights of anglophones.

Quebec’s language law reform, Bill 96, requires all government communications with citizens to be in French except with people who were communicating with the government in English before the bill was introduced in May 2021 and are grandfathered in, or those who have the right to English-language education in the province — referred to in the directive as “recognized anglophones.”

Roberge said the document was intended to ensure those individuals have the ability to continue carrying out what he described as “administrative” communications in English and that despite the references to certificates in the directive, the government will continue to use the honour system and allow people to self-identify as anglophones who are entitled to communications in English.

Asked for examples of administrative communications, Roberge said he’s not responsible for health and social services and didn’t want to give the wrong information, but that, for example, an access-to-information request or information about a hospital’s administration would be considered “administrative communications.”

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The QCGN called Tuesday for the directive to scrapped, or at least suspended until the new version is ready and that if what the minister has said about there being no changes to access to English-language health care, the directive is unnecessary.

“Piecemeal changes to these directives are not enough,” Director General Sylvia Martin-Laforge said in a statement. “At the very least, if the directives are to be edited, the current, unacceptable directives must be suspended immediately, this minute. The confusion they create, the complications they introduce into the administration of health care in Quebec are unnecessary and unconscionable.”

Eric Maldoff, a Montreal lawyer with expertise in health and linguistic matters, said it was unacceptable that the list of meeting attendees remained secret until hours after the meeting.

He said if the government is going to revise the document, it only makes sense for the existing directive to be withdrawn until the new one is ready.

As for the government’s claim that everyone is able to get services in the language they want, he said, that raises questions as to why the government doesn’t just simply say that.

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“If that’s the case, why do we have the 30-page directive? Why do you feel that’s necessary? It’s one line,” he said in an interview.

“The choice of language of health and social services has to be in the hands of the patient, the user. They’re the ones who need that. It should not be in the power of administrators, bureaucrats, or others to determine whether they’re going to get safe and effective communication,” he said.

On Tuesday the McGill University Health Centre said it has received the directive and “provides clinical care and services to patients in French or English as requested by the user, or in another language as might be needed with the support of family members and interpreters.”

The CIUSSS West-Central Montreal, which oversees health-care facilities, including the Jewish General Hospital, that provide services in English said Tuesday that it can’t say at this point what might change as a result of the directive.

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