Official Languages Committee on Oct. 5th, 2006

[Hubert Gauthier]

Fifty-five per cent did not receive services.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

They did not receive services. Has there been any improvement in that regard to date?

[Hubert Gauthier]

I think we are noticing a movement towards greater access, owing to the investments that have been made. We think that if this tempo is maintained, in a few years access to services will significantly improve.

This is currently just the beginning. Most projects take two or three years to get off the ground and we're often waiting for funding. We are currently waiting for our 2006-2007 funding but, as we know, half the year has already gone by. So it's stop and go and that has been the problem since the beginning.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

I'm curious about something. You mentioned that there are a million francophones outside Quebec but there are also more than a million francophiles, young people in French immersion, etc. Is that being taken into account. Do you also serve those people?

[Hubert Gauthier]

Yes.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

And does that put additional strain on your resources, for example?

[Hubert Gauthier]

Take Vancouver, for example. I was there two weeks ago. The francophone and francophile population in British Columbia is increasingly exponentially. It's extraordinary to see all those people. There's a good side to that. For example, in the Faculty of Medicine at UBC, there are now young francophones coming from French immersion schools who are enrolled in medicine and who will eventually be able to offer those services to francophones. Clearly the francophone communities in British Columbia and in Alberta are growing steadily because of immigration owing to the economic boom in both those provinces. It's good timing. Two weeks ago I was in Alberta and British Columbia. It is clear that our networks in those provinces are no longer able to do the work because of an influx of people that nobody could have imagined five years ago.

In Alberta there are a significant number of Quebecers and francophones from elsewhere who want services in their language. That's to be expected. However, those services frequently do not exist. I'm using those two examples to illustrate that it is in fact difficult to keep pace in terms of services, with the extent of the development that is occurring in both those provinces.

[Raymond Simard]

I have one last question.

Earlier, you mentioned continuity. The real problem with all levels of government is that even successful pilot projects only last two or three years.

For example, the previous government had instituted a horizontal delivery service which provided funding not through Heritage Canada but through Health Canada. Is that still the way it operates? Do you still deal with Health Canada?

Oui.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

It is ongoing, even with the new government?

[Hubert Gauthier]

Yes.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

You also expressed a concern about continued funding. Is there anything that the Standing Committee on Official Languages can do to help you? We would not want to see the project shelved after four years. Mr. Petit gave us some examples of successful projects, like the Saint-Boniface Health Centre, which serves as an example throughout the province of Manitoba on the best way to proceed. It is a real success. So how can we help you?

[Hubert Gauthier]

Treasury Board is about to approve our request for only three years of funding for the organization of our services. So the 2006-2007 fiscal year has been taken care of.

We are concerned about the funding for 2007-2008. We believe that the committee can help us to obtain that funding. It is a first step, but the funding must be continuous if we want to make any headway with the projects outlined in these documents that are being undertaken jointly with the provinces.

Money from the federal government provides a kickstart and attracts more funding. It is not our only source of money but, as Mr. Fortier said, it attracts help from communities, provinces and municipalities. We are concerned about the funding for 2007-2008, which is important. Budgets will be brought down soon — in February — and the committee can help us by making recommendations. And we will raise the issue with Minister Clement.

We, along with our colleagues from the training consortium, have another concern; it relates to the initial five-year agreement that will end in 2008. We would like to know what will happen post-2008. The seven or eight provincial ministers with whom I have spoken expressed the same concern and would like to intervene in order to ensure continued funding. I have letters of support from Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, British Columbia, etc.

I said earlier that it takes eight years to train a doctor. The fifth year is about to begin. So what do we do? Do we simply forget about the sixth, seventh and eight years?

It would not make a very good impression on those who have devoted so much of themselves to improve the services. These people are involved in an ongoing process. They need something to take them beyond 2008, and your committee can probably be quite instrumental in doing that.

I would be more than happy to come back to tell you about the advisory committee's results and provide you with the recommendations that have been made for the post-2008 period.

[The Chair, Conservative, Guy Lauzon]

Thank you, Mr. Gauthier. The committee has heard you.

We are an official languages committee and too often, because we're mostly francophones, we have a tendency to speak in French. It's refreshing to have a few words in English, so I'd like to ask Mr. Patrick Brown to address a question to Mr. Gauthier or to any of our guests in English.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

Thank you.

I understand an essential part of your work is to raise the visibility of the services you offer that are already available. Certainly that would require a strong communications plan. So I want you to touch on your communications strategy to raise the visibility of the services that are available and the progress you've had on initiatives thus far.

I also want you to touch on your more recent program, the national service brand, and maybe give us details about that.

[Hubert Gauthier]

First, of course, we're conscious of the issue of visibility, because when you are living in a minority situation.... I've worked as a CEO of a big hospital and I can tell you that francophones, when they come to a large hospital that is primarily anglophone, will not make a fight for services in French, because they fear they will get second-level service, if you will, or hear “stand in line, and we'll get somebody for you”. They've stood in line long enough, and they don't want to do that. So they will compromise and go with the English services, even if half the time they're missing some pieces here.

Therefore, we created what we call the national brand to identify where services are available. It becomes more proactive. Staff have identification, as Dr. Fortier has on him, that indicates that you are a person—a little bit like Air Canada, where you see français-anglais, or German, or whatever.... We've created that national service brand so that francophones—as well as professionals, because it's both ways—can be identified, or the professionals are, and the citizens know where that service is available. For us this is an essential part of developing the services where they are available. That's where we have to start.

In Saskatchewan, for instance, and Alberta, when we start identifying the professionals who can give services en français, we're finding more than we thought were there; however, the citizens didn't know where they were. They weren't identified. They were not on a website; they were nowhere to be seen.

Now we think part of the strategy is to become more visible, and to value that part of the service so that it comes to be on a par with the services that are offered to the majority.

I lived with staff as a CEO—and some of my staff were French in l'Hôpital général de Saint-Boniface—who would be cautious about speaking French very openly, because they were criticized by their colleagues oftentimes. If they spoke French to a French client, they would be told, maybe by others, “The others don't understand, so maybe this is not very good.”

So you see the pressure that is on staff. You have to spend a lot of energy valuing your staff and saying, this is okay. By the way, this is not only true for francophones; it would be true for aboriginals; it would be true for Asian people in B.C. What we're doing for the francophones is I think value added for the whole system, because people are starting to see how you can do this. I think we're showing the way.

So that's the answer to la marque de service, the national service brand: that people can recognize where these services are available and where they are not, and that it is a proactive thing. It's not just a case of putting the onus on the citizen. When you're in health care and have come to the emergency room, trust me, you're not going to make a fight about French services there; you're going to say “treat me”, no matter how you cut it up.

Even though they would prefer—and I have stories.... My mother has been in and out of hospital. I've been taking care of her, and I've heard atrocious stories of her not understanding, but going along, and going back home and not knowing what she has to do next. So we have to go back, and she has more infection. Those kinds of things are what happens when you compromise your services.

I have many stories like that. I think you understand.

By the way, it's not only true for francophones. It would be true for all linguistic cultural minorities. I think we have to pay in our health system a lot more attention to those kinds of things, because we're not a quality system if we don't.

So that is the national service brand.

In terms of the better projects and our best practices, that's why we have printed positive results already. The projects illustrated in this report are probably some of the better initiatives we have created. As well, we have the video you saw. There are eight of those explaining some of the projects, a little differently from what's in this—more about them. Out of the 70 projects, we probably have about 25 that are excellent projects, showing the way to better accessibility results. We've highlighted a few in here and a few in the videos.

I don't know if you are going to be travelling across the country, but I would welcome this committee meeting some of our groups to let them explain what they are doing exactly and why it's a winning combination. It's not only about the national organization; it's about Manitoba, it's about l'Île-du-Prince-Édouard, it's about Nova Scotia, it's about B.C., it's about Alberta. And it's about what's going on in New Brunswick too.

[The Chair, Conservative, Guy Lauzon]

Thank you very much, Mr. Gauthier. Your suggestion is very timely. We've just discussed travelling across the country to assess French language services across the country, so undoubtedly some of your centres will be visited.

[Hubert Gauthier]

If you need any help on that--

[The Chair, Conservative, Guy Lauzon]

I'm sure we'll be in contact with you.

Thank you.

Your turn, Mr. Malo.

[Luc Malo, Bloc, Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Gentlemen, thank you for joining us this morning.

I would like to go back to what Mr. Godin was saying earlier. He raised a rather an alarming situation for women who are giving birth in the Acadian Peninsula. They must travel by ambulance and often need to give birth in the ambulance, which is quite disturbing. Since you have locations more or else throughout the territory, perhaps over time you have located the somewhat problematic zones, like the one described by Mr. Godin. You said yourself that you were partners. I assume that is part of your routine work, you attempt to influence the various provincial ministries of health in Canada so that situations like that are remedied.

I would like to hear your comments on that.

[Hubert Gauthier]

Indeed, we established ourselves initially to influence decisions, so that francophones do not pay the price of all the reforms we are seeing. You are talking about one case, but I cannot go into detail on that case, because I do not have the necessary information to discuss it. Having said that, we have seen—throughout the country, and not just in New Brunswick—that the reorganizations were not taking into account the needs of the francophone minority when services were closed or grouped together.

For example, in my own province, in Manitoba, when the oncology services are grouped and transferred from the Saint-Boniface General Hospital to another place, it must be clearly stated how the services will be offered in French. The purpose of our networks is to influence that. They have been in place for three years, and that is why I think it is important for the provincial governments, like the Manitoba government—and the Ontario government as well, which we have not talked about much up until now—to formalize the role of these networks in the structure that they are currently redoing. We would like the provincial governments to officially recognize our structures. That would give us more weight in dealing with such matters.

[Luc Malo, Bloc, Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC]

If I understand correctly, that is the objective of the 17 networks that are currently on the ground, but they are still not fully capable of accomplishing that.

[Hubert Gauthier]

Not completely. We are currently conducting an operation to have provincial governments officially recognize our networks. That is an extremely important objective. Several are working very well with the provincial governments, but obtaining official recognition is a whole other ball game. That is what we are attempting to accomplish in order to have some influence in the right place at the right time. We do not want to be perceived as an outside group. It is not easy to want to be but not to be a government partner. Work remains to be done, but we are moving closer together in that regard.

Three years ago, we were nowhere on that, but we have made great progress in getting involved in systems in order to influence decisions that may be negative for the general population.

[Luc Malo, Bloc, Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC]

Apart from that, could you briefly tell us about the specific advantages of the 17 networks on the ground?

[Hubert Gauthier]

Yes. Among other things, we offer the advantage of having set up projects. In fact, it is one thing to influence government decisions. However that is just one aspect.

The second advantage deals with our recommendations to improve access, which explains the 70 projects. So it is about management, promotion, and moving that along. The third advantage is sending the right person to the right place for the right service.

In fact, a francophone may be in a certain place in a facility whereas the services required are elsewhere in that facility. So what do we do? The whole human resources side is set in motion. The situation is extremely complex because of the unions, the highly unionized health-care environment. It is almost impossible to transfer a person from one floor to another. I know, because I managed a facility.

For example, in Saint-Boniface, the union with which I was working very well is now challenging this. And when we want to say that positions will be designated francophone, the union protests on the grounds of seniority. As you know, the person with the most seniority is not necessarily a francophone. But a francophone is needed.

As a result, the work being done by our networks is closely linked to matching resources and requirements.

Because my facility was accused of not offering services in French, I would jokingly tell the Franco-Manitoban community that the problem was that they did not have the right disease at the right time. You see what I mean. It is a joke, but it nevertheless illustrates that my francophone cardiologist or my francophone nurse might not be on duty when I have a heart attack.

So we have huge problems with matching, and our networks work with the facilities to ensure that this matching work is done. That is another exercise, in terms of human resources, and is extremely important for us.

[The Chair, Conservative, Guy Lauzon]

Thank you very much, Mr. Gauthier.

It is your turn, Mr. Godin.