I would like to clarify something. Before beginning these surveys, we had to decide how the groups would be divided: French-language respondents, respondents whose preferred language is French or respondents for whom the first official language that they learned is French. This was important because we were dealing with health services where, as I explained, communication is the key. Therefore, when I speak about surveying the francophone population, this also includes immigrants who speak French. That is an important point and I stress the importance of the language category because in the context of Canada's official languages, these infrastructures must reflect our Canadian reality.
It was difficult to find a reliable way to document this survey. First, because data relating to language cannot be found in the administrative data relating to health. Surveys have to be done. There are problems related to access to information and to ethics. The small surveys done by Health Canada do not provide a big enough sample to allow for a reliable study. This situation has to be corrected.
I worked with Jean-Marie Berthelot and his team at Statistics Canada. I thought that by combining a number of age groups I would have an accurate snapshot, but, in my opinion, being part of a minority group means having a different type of access to resources and services, something that must be documented. It is true that socio-economic status is the main health determinant, generally speaking. But this study does not take financial status into account, nor does it consider age, sex, all of the factors where differences apply. Even if you ignore all of those factors, there is still something that has a negative effect on health. It might look simple, but I thought that this finding was significant because of the relationship to a linguistic or sociolinguistic minority. So this is something that must absolutely be explored further.
Obviously, since I am a researcher, I will advocate more research, so that we might be able to document this phenomenon and provide better service to these communities. What the networks have done to provide training in the French language for professionals is of tremendous value. That said, research is still the best way to determine how these services should be provided to this population.
Ontario is currently regionalizing its services. It is an extremely valuable opportunity for sociolinguistic communities to put forward services plans that will meet their needs. These communities must avail themselves of the opportunity to take a closer look at the issue.
I have a student who is working on her Ph.D. on the health of populations and who is examining rural and linguistic aspect of Northern Ontario. She is taking part in the regionalization project. I asked her to write her thesis on the language issue and the organization of services in Northern Ontario's rural communities where there is a need for professionals and where professionals should be sent; but the situation must be documented to ensure that services are provided in both languages.