Senator Rose-May Poirier

Senator Poirier: Thank you to all the witnesses for being with us this evening. My question is for Mr. Désilets and concerns the consultation between the Société Santé en français, the French-language health networks and the federal government. Are you satisfied with the consultation mechanisms in place? Are they effective? Do they need to be improved and if so, by what means?

Mr. Désilets: Thank you for the question. I think that the consultation mechanisms are quite effective. The last consultation received responses from over 1,500 French and English respondents; in terms of consultation for a department, that is very high. This was in the context of developing the 2018-2023 Action Plan for Official Languages. In terms of the effectiveness of the consultations, I think they don’t always generate the desired results. With Bill C-13, we saw that we needed a central agency to ensure that the various departments act in the same way.

Health Canada’s role must be well defined in the action plan and aligned with the plan’s objectives; there will be work to do at this level. It is not about consultation, it is about collaboration.

Senator Poirier: Are you holding consultations with the government?

Mr. Désilets: With the department, we have two meetings a year of the advisory committee on official language communities and there are ad hoc consultations, including the one for 2022 that I mentioned.

Senator Poirier: My second question is also for Mr. Désilets and concerns the recognition of foreign credentials to facilitate the mobility of health care workers across the country. Do you have any recommendations for the federal government to improve these skills? What role do you think the various professional associations can play in foreign credential recognition?

Mr. Désilets: That’s a good question. In terms of credential recognition, I think that at the federal level, there could be a single entrance exam for the different professions. Many provinces and territories make their own choices, which now leads to different qualifications, for example, between nurses trained in Quebec and those trained in New Brunswick. The tests are not the same.

We can add to this provincial agreements with other source countries of immigration, which also creates differences in mobility. For example, in Quebec, there is an agreement with France, which allows people to come to the country and be retrained fairly quickly, which is not possible in some places. Other provinces want to follow that example and recreate that; New Brunswick is moving in that direction now.

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Senator Poirier: Again, thank you to the witnesses for all their good answers. I have a question for whoever wants to answer it. It has to do with the Action Plan for Official Languages. The 2023 budget provides an additional $373.7 million over five years, starting in 2023-24, to support the implementation of the next Action Plan for Official Languages, as well as $117 million over five years, part of which will be used to support the training of nurses and care attendants. Is this enough money to fill the gap? What impact will these funds have?

Mr. Désilets: I think when you ask that question, the answer is rarely yes. It’s not enough. We spent over $300 billion on health in Canada last year, if you mix federal, provincial and territorial investments. I think it was $308 billion last year. The federal contribution is about $40 billion in transfers, but $40 million a year is allocated to the Official Languages in Health Program for two official language communities in 13 health systems. For every $100 spent on health in Canada, one cent goes to the Official Languages Program. This is not enough. It’s not just the federal government’s job to be at the table. The provinces also have a responsibility to provide their own funds for their communities. Will we see an impact? I think we will.

We managed to renew our funding agreement with Health Canada without waiting for the action plan, but this was done on the basis of the 2018 amounts. You’ve seen, as I have, that the cost of living has increased substantially since 2018. So, we’re starting this month with an effective purchasing power that’s down 8% to 9% from what we had in 2018.

That’s an effective reduction in support for official language communities. I hope that the action plan that will be unveiled soon will restore things.

Senator Poirier: What are your expectations of the action plan that will be unveiled this week?

Mr. Désilets: My colleagues have talked about it a bit, but we expect core funding for organizations, not ad hoc funding or funding for short-term priorities. We need to build capacity as community organizations.

In many cases, like the network you see here, these organizations have one or two people in Canada. Their role is to influence a health system. It’s a huge job; it’s David versus Goliath all over. We need core funding to increase our capacity to influence others and then give more back to the communities we serve.