Official Languages Committee on Oct. 5th, 2006

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Gauthier, to go back to the example you gave about the unions, I think that the union representatives have perhaps learned that from the doctors. I am thinking about the doctor who does not want to deliver a baby even if he is fully qualified to do so, because the specialist will do the delivery for him. Moreover, midwives in Quebec can deliver babies, but the doctor is not qualified and refuses to do so because that is not his job.

[Hubert Gauthier]

That is another side of the same problem.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

That is it. At least we agree on that.

I just want to quickly tell you a little story: a story about a little pin. I know that I do not have much time, and I do not want to use it all on this little pin.

I went to Sault-Sainte-Marie, where there is a francophone community. They decided to make a little pin that simply says "Bonjour". They gave me one, and it is true that it works. In fact, when I arrived at the airport, a woman said to me: "Bonjour, Monsieur". I asked her how she knew that I spoke French. She told me that it said "Bonjour" on my pin. Sometimes, it does not take much to identify someone, does it? I wanted to share that story with you.

Let's go back to health in French. I want to focus on training. People must be trained. I do not know what you do in this regard in your discussions with the governments, but I find some things regrettable. I will give you an example. I know a young woman who went to Montreal to take an oncology course. To do that, she had to go and get books from McGill University and translate them herself in order to take the course. So francophones are at a complete disadvantage. I have heard that training means obtaining almost 80 per cent of the books in English, in specialized fields like that one.

In your work, you must not only examine the services, but also determine how young people can access them. In fact, francophones are disadvantaged in comparison with anglophones who have everything available to them upon their arrival. For them, it's a pleasure. If francophones are required to learn in English 80 per cent of the time, they may well be bilingual,but they are not studying in their first language and it is not easy. I know, because these young people are asking us to give them a hand. But we are not taking these courses, they are.

[Hubert Gauthier]

One of the 70 projects that we managed is in that area. We understood that it was important to train our doctors and nurses in universities in places such as Moncton, Sherbrooke and Ottawa. That is important in itself.

We found that even among francophones professionals who were already working and who had very often received almost all their training in English or the way you describe it... What I am going to say may appear simple, but we organize day-long training sessions on language and terminology matters for professionals. These were accredited courses given on the weekend. My consortium colleagues could give you more details on that, but it is one way of giving people the tools they need to use the right terms when they are dealing with francophones.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

My question is whether action is being taken. For example, could the books that these students get from McGill not be translated into French so that they can study in their own language?

[Hubert Gauthier]

I think that you would need to discuss that with the consortium. I do not know all the details about what they do. I must tell you that—

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

We are just back from the Francophonie Summit in Bucharest. People were talking there about war and not about French. There is a problem. Can we get international help for this? There are African countries, France, Canada, for example.

[Hubert Gauthier]

I can honestly tell you that courses are given in French because of the involvement of the University of Ottawa, the University of Moncton, Collège Saint-Boniface and Collège Sainte-Anne. They are concerned about this problem. However, we know that we live in North America. To take my own example, I did my master's in administration in French, but a lot of the background material was in English. Translation is a never-ending job. We think the priority is to give people the basic tools they need when they are on the job. We have a lot of doctors and nurses who need terminology training so that they can express themselves properly in French. They have received their training in English, in many cases.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Since I need to leave now to go to New Brunswick, I would like to thank our guests. This information helps with our work in our regions and on the committee. I would really like to thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Guy Lauzon]

I'm sorry, I will go to Mr. D'Amours for the next question.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

I would also like to thank the three of you for coming here to discuss your organization with us. Health care in French is an important issue.

As you know, I am also from New Brunswick. It is interesting to note that the Standing Committee on Official Languages has three members from New Brunswick. That is interesting and very important for us.

From the outset, I understood from your comments that you seem to be looking for the Standing Committee on Official Language to prepare a letter of support for you, which would be sent to Health Canada. Your funding is one thing. We see what is happening with funding, and I do not want to get into that. If we want to guarantee a better future for francophones in the area of health care services, we need to guarantee funding.

Is that the message that you are sending this morning about the budget for 2007-08? If that is what you would like, I do not think that any committee members would refuse.

[Hubert Gauthier]

When I said that we thought that your committee might be able to help us with the next stages, for 2007-08 and subsequent years, I also mentioned that the Advisory Committee would be submitting a report to Mr. Clement. That might be the opportunity to discuss it here, but in the short term, you know the channels better than I do. Obviously, if signals are sent to the government by a standing committee like this one, that might help move things along. It is a good signal to send. I will leave it up to you as to how proceed.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Thank you. Your suggestion is duly noted. From what I can see, everyone seems to agree.

It is important to know how to speak French, but before talking about training, Mr. Gauthier, you made a brief comment in response to Mr. Brown's question. You talked about the woman who had a hard time obtaining certain services. That is a challenge, but there is another one connected with that. People who live in rural areas like mine have to go to the pharmacy to pick up their medications. They receive a fact sheet with instructions, but we know that there are people who are unable to read and understand that information. We know what has just been done, but I do not think that that will resolve the situation. I am not asking you for a comment, but you should perhaps look into this. If we give people only half the service and they are not able to take care of themselves, we have a serious problem.

On the question of training for professionals, it needs to be offered in French if these people are to be able to provide service in French. It is already difficult to attract and retain professionals and francophone communities. It is not enough to say that we will train people in French or train francophones to be medical professionals. That is one thing, even if they take their training in English. But they are still francophones. Attracting and keeping professionals in rural francophone regions is always a challenge.

One of my sisters lives in Saint-Boniface, in the riding of my colleague, Mr. Simard. We always need to find new ways. The other day, we had witnesses at the committee, and I asked them to give us ways to attract and retain these people. You may have some ideas on this, since you have connections in the francophone community. Perhaps you have some ideas that could help regions with official language minority communities.

[The Chair, Conservative, Guy Lauzon]

You have 30 seconds left to answer, since Mr. D'Amours used up all his time.

[Denis Fortier]

To begin with, it has been clear for years that the way to recruit and keep doctors is to provide training in the regions and create the necessary infrastructure for that training, whether we are talking about nurses, doctors or other professionals.

Second, we need to create partnerships with the community, the community development councils, or CDCs to ensure that we welcome these people when they come to do their training. There is a whole system for that. In Manitoba, I know that there is a learning process under way. Anglophone communities have been doing this for years, and they do it very well. We need to learn from them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Guy Lauzon]

Thank you very much, Dr. Fortier.

Ms. Barbot, it is your turn.

[Vivian Barbot, Bloc, Papineau, QC]

This is an important issue, because even in Quebec, where the population is much larger, it is extremely difficult to attract doctors to rural areas. And it is getting more difficult as time goes on. It is probably possible to establish some cooperation — you know Quebec — to see what innovative means are being developed to make sure that people have access to services.

You talked about the Consortium national pour la formation de professionnels francophones. The 2003 Action Plan for Official Languages called for an investment of $75 million for training, recruitment and retention. That led to the creation of the Consortium national pour la formation de professionnels francophones. I would like to know what ties your organization has with the consortium and what cooperation takes place.

[Hubert Gauthier]

First of all, when it was decided that there would be three strategies, we decided at the outset that the consortium would cover the training aspect and we would take on the other two. We share office space and are sister organizations. We have the same ultimate objectives, which are to improve health care services in French.

Moreover, members of our board of directors are on their board, and vice-versa. That is the way we work. There are also permanent structures in the areas of research and human resources. With respect to this issue of recruitment and retention, we decided to create joint committees involving both organizations, since both are affected by this issue.

We work very closely with each other. What is done by one organization helps the other, and vice-versa. That is why I would encourage you to meet with representatives of the consortium as well, since it has a great deal of expertise in its area of concern, which is training.

We become involved once people have finished their training. To deal with retention, training environments and basically anything that will help recruit and retain people, we realized that the two organizations need to work more closely together. The idea is not just to train people. After all, if they take jobs in anglophone institutions afterwards, we will be no further ahead.

Our job is to help people after their training, so that they will be in the right places in our communities.

[Vivian Barbot, Bloc, Papineau, QC]

The goal is to have 1,000 new participants in the health care field by 2008. Do you believe that this is realistic?

[Hubert Gauthier]

We have reached that goal. Not only have we had the registrations, but the target has even been exceeded.

[Vivian Barbot, Bloc, Papineau, QC]

Registrations?

[Hubert Gauthier]

Yes, registrations.

As you know, it take eight years to become a doctor. Nursing requires four years, depending on the place. As we said earlier, we already have 400 graduates. But the number of people registered is higher than what we had expected.

[Vivian Barbot, Bloc, Papineau, QC]

For both doctors and nurses?

[Hubert Gauthier]

Yes, in all disciplines.

I have to say that this has been a great success. Young people are registering across the country, despite the uncertainties. The big challenge is really to make sure that students from northern Ontario who go to Ottawa to study return to places like Sudbury, Hearst and Kapuskasing.

[Vivian Barbot, Bloc, Papineau, QC]

Are there any aspects of the 2001 report that you would have liked to see implemented but which were not?