Thanks for your question, Mr. Beaulieu.
You're right. This opportunity that all Canadians, anglophones in particular, have to become bilingual must absolutely be maintained in Canadian society, thanks in part to the federal government. The linguistic security that francophones enjoy, particularly in Quebec, must also be enhanced.
Quebec has a key role to play in promoting French in North America. The fact that the province has prepared a guide for francophones outside Quebec is an indication of its desire to move closer to the Canadian francophonie. And that has been very well received. In addition to Quebec's leadership, the federal government also has a leadership role to play in ensuring genuine equality between English and French in Canada.
I'd like to go back to a point concerning your study. You are all working on a study report that we are eager to read. However, you mustn't forget how important it is for you to rely on research and compelling data, particularly when language is viewed as a public health and safety issue.
Much research has shown that patient safety is essential. Provincial governments have stressed the importance of patient safety. With regard to official languages, we can show that francophone patients in minority communities may be misdiagnosed if they are not served in their language.
In a minority setting, it can make all the difference if patients can speak to their physicians in French rather than English. For example, if a francophone says he has "mal au cœur", other francophones will know that means nausea. But if he says it to an anglophone doctor, the latter may hear the word "coeur" and think he's having a heart attack. The result may be a misdiagnosis.
Major mental health issues may soon appear, and we must ensure that people get care. Communication is fundamentally important in the health field. It must be clear; people must be able to understand.
Research has also shown that language is very important during post-treatment convalescence. It is one of the conditions for healing. When we say that language is a public health and safety issue, we have research-based examples that show the language issue cannot be taken lightly.
Getting back to Ms. Martinez Ferrada's question, the action plan must include a francophone lens and a culture change across all of government. In previous action plans, officials opted for the interdepartmental approach, but we're going beyond interdepartmental here. Action must be taken to expand employees' ability to work in the official language of their choice, and that also means the ability of officials to work in French, as the report by researchers Borbey and Mendelsohn shows.
I invite you to review that very good report, which proposes promising ways to improve the situation and clearly shows that there's a sociopsychological dimension to the situation of French. For example, some francophone federal employees are afraid to speak French because they think they won't be able to earn promotions.
What public service employees can do, for example, is write reports in French first and then translate them into English. Thanks to artificial intelligence, it takes three minutes to translate a report from French into English. If the report is drafted in French, it will also take three minutes to translate it into English.