Official Languages committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks to the members of the committee. It is a genuine pleasure to be here today. First, I would like to acknowledge that the land on which the Société Santé en français sits is part of the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe people

Official Languages committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'll try to speak more slowly. I don't often make presentations to committees. Allow me to say a few words about the Société Santé en français. We are a national organization supported by Health Canada. We celebrated our 20th anniversary this yea

Official Languages committee  This bill mentions respect for provincial jurisdictions under the Constitution of Canada. We could also add recognition of the right to subject the federal government's spending power to conditions. In my presentation, I mentioned two specific factors, including the collection

Official Languages committee  You mentioned the idea of allocating funding to provinces and territories prepared to take specific action. I think that would be a good amendment. However, it can't be denied that the federal government also has to play a leadership role. Not all Canadian provinces will get invo

Official Languages committee  Thank you for that question. As regards methodology, I don't have the number of respondents with me. The survey was conducted by the Léger firm, which is well known in the field. The study was released in early 2020, and the data was gathered before the pandemic. We have no cle

Official Languages committee  I think that's essential. In an emergency, if society shirks its responsibilities and abandons its official language objectives, it sends out the message that French is a secondary language. I don't think that's a good message to send.

Official Languages committee  I'll be pleased to tell you a little about that.

Official Languages committee  Virtually 75% of funding and support, that is to say most of it, currently concerns service development at the federal level. As I said in my presentation, we influence the situation somewhat indirectly. Our work is to equip the provinces to do this work. Currently, in public h

Official Languages committee  The issue of designations is critical, and it's essential that we know the population pools. That takes me back to the compelling data issue. As is the case in education, there's no clear information on the services that francophones use or on the service points where they go. W

Official Languages committee  It's important to seize the opportunity. The objectives in Bill C‑13 must be clarified and the right measures put in place. I obviously agree that the bill has to be reinforced in order to guarantee its impact. Our ultimate goal is to ensure that language isn't a barrier for fra

Official Languages committee  I'm not a specialist in immigration policy. However, with respect to the availability of labour, there's a shortage in health care everywhere in Canada. It affects francophones even more. By that I mean that there are no francophone health care professionals in Canada who are una

Official Languages committee  We believe that language clauses are essential. It's often hard to see where the money is going. Language clauses are needed if we want details about the outcomes. I mentioned two important areas earlier. Having a central agency do the administration strikes us as essential. For

Official Languages committee  It's a complex question because health is largely a provincial jurisdiction. Each health system in Canada has its own structure and its own challenges. In order to take action, you have to know what is needed. So in fact, my answer does resemble my answer to the previous questio

Official Languages committee  I'll be very brief. Two types of data should be collected. Firstly, there should be data about systems capacity, to determine which service centres and which professionals are capable of providing service in French. The purpose is to develop signage and to make sure that such se

Official Languages committee  Collecting data on community needs is already part of the work we are doing directly with the provinces and territories. We have to prepare them and coach them. Of course, adding funding conditions and other revealing data, which could be collected on behalf of the Canadian Insti