Senator Rose-May Poirier

Senator Poirier: Thank you for being with us. It’s really nice to be able to talk to you this evening about topics that are important to us.

You’ve been the Commissioner of Official Languages for about three years. As we begin our study on health care services in official language minority communities, what do you see as the greatest challenge for Acadian communities with respect to health care services? Also, how could the federal government help address this challenge?

I would also like to make a comment to follow up on what you said earlier. You said that when someone registers for a doctor who speaks their language of choice, the wait may be longer if it’s a francophone doctor.

This is a real challenge in New Brunswick with an increasingly aging population. Depending on where they live, people over the age of 75 say that they’ve been waiting a long time for a doctor. For some, having an English-speaking doctor would not be ideal, as many do not understand the language. I know this because I work with people from my province, and they tell me the same thing.

Going to the emergency room to see a doctor in a French-speaking hospital isn’t the answer either, because people spend the whole day in the hospital and, by midnight, they still haven’t seen a doctor.

What is the federal government going to do to solve this problem that we are facing?

Ms. MacLean: The biggest challenge is access to health care services in French. That’s where we see the most complaints.

Obviously, the institutions understand that they have to provide this service. As you said, it’s also a safety issue.

We also often see, in certain regions, that francophones tend to… Even complainants who say they almost always insist on getting services in French decide to speak in English because they know they will have to wait several hours, and the situation is urgent.

This is a safety issue. Ultimately, it’s about the possibility of receiving services in French. It’s often a question of funds, of funding, but the problem of access to services in French is also linked to labour shortages. When I receive complaints, I make recommendations, but the representatives of the institutions will often reply that they don’t have enough bilingual employees. That’s why we receive these kinds of complaints.

Should the federal government include language clauses when it makes transfers to the provinces? Should it ensure that some funds are earmarked for the hiring of bilingual employees? I think so. The obligation is already there. Additional funds are probably part of the solution, but you have to have… Obviously, health is a provincial jurisdiction, but language clauses that would require the provincial government to insist on more employees could help solve some of the problems.

Senator Poirier: It’s a worrisome situation, especially for the elderly. Sometimes they don’t understand English. They must be able to explain what their problem is and receive the necessary information in their language.

Do I have time for a second question?

The Chair: Yes.

Senator Poirier: Okay.

Last September, the Nurses Association of New Brunswick announced a partnership with France to make it easier for nurses coming from France to obtain a work permit. Is it too early to evaluate this initiative? Do you think such an agreement should be a model for others in the country?

Ms. MacLean: I don’t know if there has been any assessment of how this agreement works. It’s probably something that the Department of Health and the Nurses Association of New Brunswick could do, because they’re the ones who govern the profession.

Any time you can remove barriers to make it easier, that’s a good thing. I’m a lawyer. The Law Society of New Brunswick has had a mobility agreement between the provinces for several years now so that lawyers can cross the border easily. It allows nurses and doctors to work in other provinces. Whenever something can be done to remove barriers, that’s a very good thing.

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Senator Poirier: I’ll try to group my questions. We discussed new technologies, telemedicine with the use of a camera and what can be done. You mentioned that translation can be done by computer.

I had a situation last fall when I went to the hospital for an MRI. It was a more anglophone hospital used by people from all over the province, as it was not very busy. Many came from the Acadian Peninsula. Situations were as mundane as a lady trying to fill out a form. People didn’t understand each other, and no one could translate. So I offered to do the translation, even though I was a patient waiting for treatment, and I did it.

This situation made me think. I’m thinking particularly of places where there are only English-speaking doctors. When there is a shortage of staff, would it be possible to have someone do the translation? It would be a little friendlier than a machine that translates.

I’d like to come back to New Brunswick’s aging population. These people aren’t as comfortable with new technologies and cameras because they don’t use them. They need to be better served. What do you think of my suggestion?

Ms. MacLean: This situation reflects a lack of obligation on the part of the hospital. There needs to be a contingency plan. If someone fills out a form, you need to be able to give them the information they need. If you don’t speak English or French, you need a contingency plan and someone on site to help people. Institutions have tried to find solutions. They have used fly-in teams to go into hospitals and provide these services. But that didn’t work well, and there weren’t enough people. Especially with COVID, it fell through because we didn’t have the staff to do that kind of work. The obligation is still there. We get a lot of complaints like that.

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Senator Poirier: Thank you all for being here today.

[English]

I kind of translated my notes from French to English so I’ll go that route. What I’m hearing from you is a lot like what we are hearing from situations across the country where it is francophones in a minority situation; here you are the anglophones in a minority situation. In reality there is a shortage of health care professionals. There are problems with recruitment and retention of health care professionals. The challenges you are facing, from what I’m hearing, are pretty well the same across the country, depending on where you live and what the language issue is. We know that a lot of the roles in health care are under the provincial level, not necessarily under the federal level.

I’m curious to know in your opinion — and I’m opening up the question to all of you or whoever wants to answer. We always know and we always hear, absolutely, that more money and financial aid are factors that could actually help, and that’s where the federal government can sometimes help in bringing in more funds. But at the same time, if we have more and more funds but we don’t have the manpower, we don’t have the people who can come in and do the work, that is a big challenge.

So I guess my question to you is: How can the federal government help in getting more people to come, whether it is getting people from other countries to come in who are bilingual or who can work in a bilingual environment, either as a francophone or anglophone, depending on the situation? Or is there a role that the federal government can play in maybe encouraging more of our own Canadian youth as they grow older to look into the health care system as a career? Because we are getting into an aging population across the country, and that is a concern. It’s a concern everywhere.

My mother is still with me, too. If I were to bring her, she would refuse to go to the English hospital because she wouldn’t understand a word of what they were saying and wouldn’t be able to communicate. How do we address that? I want to know what other role you think the federal government can play here that can help to address this situation, because money can’t fix everything if we don’t have the people to put behind the money.

Ms. Johnson: I’ll take the first stab, but I’m sure that my colleagues have something to say on this. This standing committee are our champions. You are our champions. Having you support our community I think is extraordinarily valuable, to ensure that we don’t forget about the English-speaking community in Quebec. It is counterintuitive sometimes to talk about the English-speaking minority, but we really do have the same type of reality that francophones outside Quebec are experiencing.

Absolutely, making sure that the funding that is available through the official languages programming doesn’t get lost by transferring it to Quebec, because if you give that money directly to the Province of Quebec, I guarantee you we won’t see much of it or with regard to how it is spent. Being able to provide those resources directly to the community organizations or through McGill University ensures that that funding is having an impact, particularly on community organizations like my colleagues’ here. It is important that you advocate that that continues, that money is invested through the community, and it doesn’t become something where the Province of Quebec controls the funds.

I think, lastly, your concern about having money but no one to do the work is a real one in the sense that we are all experiencing challenges hiring individuals at the moment, but we can’t let that be a reason to not take action and move forward. I think we really have to make sure that we can pay adequate salaries so that we can keep people. Community organizations are notorious for underpaying staff. So if we are able to have the resources that allow us to pay competitive salaries, then we can keep the personnel and we can keep them in our communities.

People want to work for the English-speaking community. They want to support the people who are in their community, but if they are offered $10 more in a different setting, it is hard for them to justify staying.

Senator Poirier: Does anybody else want to answer before I go to my second question?

Ms. Callender: I’ll add something. Just to press a little bit on what Jennifer Johnson said about the role that community organizations play and being able to pay to retain our staff, I think it is that piece about us being closest to the community. We know what the community needs. We are day in and day out with them. I think the understanding or the promotion of community organizations as key players is something that could be done a little bit more. With that would come I think the respect of the work they do. Particularly in our community, in the English-speaking Black community, a lot of our community organizations do not have adequate funding. So to work in a community organization, to support your community in this way, is essentially a sacrifice. I think, to Ms. Johnson’s point, more funding would change that and would encourage more people to be of support and of help. We are the people who can arguably help the most.

Senator Poirier: On the retention side, how are you guys doing? What percentage of the people who you are able to recruit are you able to retain?

Ms. Johnson: I think it depends on the region. I would imagine that the urban centres probably have a better retention than — maybe Jessica could comment on this.

Ms. Synnott: At our community organization, I have to say that we have been lucky in terms of having a stable staff. We have the opportunity to provide more flexible hours and work‑life balance. I think that would be the biggest draw for us.

We do have newcomers to the province who have come to work for us and who don’t speak French. We provide the environment for them to be able to work and not have to come in right away with a high level of French. As an employer, we offer the opportunity for them to learn French during work hours and to improve on their French. We try to set it up to make it a good working environment, and it has worked so far.