Thank you for coming here today.
I’ll begin with one comment. In your references to what is happening in the so-called minority Anglophone community in the province of Quebec, one notes a huge disparity between the situation faced by the latter community and the Francophone community outside Quebec. This issue is not addressed anywhere in the report. I think, however, that this would offer an interesting point of comparison because this situation is found both in the networks and in the projects being proposed. So it would have been interesting to know, given an equal population, what this means. I know well that there are regional disparities faced by the more remote regions, but I don’t feel this is an element which offers a real insight into the situation of Anglophones vs that of Francophones. This may be applicable to other situations and help us make decisions.
More specifically, page 5 of your report refers to what the communities have said on this issue. You note that this report on French language minority communities demonstrated, first of all, the following:
There are major regional differences, but as a rule French language minority populations are poorer than the Anglophone majority population.
In regard to the English language minority communities, you say:
There are major differences with respect to Anglophone access to services in the various regions of Quebec: specific local initiatives are needed.
In other words, you do not provide the same information for the two communities.
I would like to know, therefore, what can be said on the issue of equivalency. What
And on the latter point you say that:
Unaffiliated physicians are viewed as the most reliable source of information in English; CLSCs and Info-Health are perceived as less reliable.
Can you tell me why this difference exists? As far as I know, unaffiliated physicians are rather few and far between in the province of Quebec.