“It’s a new, major and scary wrinkle,” says the Quebec Community Groups Network.
Under the heading of “oral and written communication,” the Health Ministry spells out the conditions for the exclusive use of English in the health sector.
“An (institution within the health network) can communicate in English exclusively with a person” provided that they meet two criteria:
- They have been “issued the document Déclaration d’admissibilité à recevoir l’enseignement en anglais du ministère de l’Éducation du Québec,” otherwise known as the English-language eligibility certificate.
- They must also “expressly request (English services).”
The other possibility is if historic Quebec anglophones can prove that prior to May 13, 2021, they had corresponded “only in English” with an institution within the health network regarding their medical file, and the institution is able to confirm this English-only correspondence before that date.
There is a caveat, however: Any pre-May 2021 correspondence cannot have been “motivated solely” by the state of emergency that Quebec declared during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The requirement to produce an English-language certificate by the Education Ministry for health care adds to the Kafkaesque nature of the densely bureacratic directive issued by the Health Ministry on July 18. That’s because such certificates are nearly impossible to obtain, even for anglophones who studied in French in high school and who now want to pursue their CEGEP education in English.
“We understand that the backlog in issuing English eligibility certificates arose because of the changing rules for CEGEPs,” said Sylvia Martin-Laforge, director general of the Quebec Community Groups Network.
“But what we don’t know is whether the Ministry of Education is now able to handle an additional influx of demands for eligibility certificates arising from this new directive because no one had told us that we would need these eligibility certificates to obtain health care.
“It’s a new, major and scary wrinkle,” Martin-Laforge added.
Bill 96 requires that all government workers, including those in hospitals and nursing homes, use French “systematically” in written and oral communications with their clients, with certain exceptions, like emergencies.
Maldoff has warned the directive could create English-language paranoia in Quebec hospitals, many of which were founded by English-speaking Quebecers. His analysis of the directive is that it could even apply to hospitals and other medical institutions that have been granted bilingual status under the Charter of the French Language.
The directive goes into detail about the exceptional circumstances in which languages other than French can be spoken in health care, including the scenarios of a 14-year-old girl seeking an abortion, an adolescent in the throes of psychosis and a patient who is suicidal.
Maldoff, however, argued that the new rules are unnecessary.
“When it comes to communication between health providers and individuals in need of care, the government should not be imposing itself between them,” he said. “Effective communication is an essential part of delivering care. It’s not optional. It’s at the heart of care.”
Maldoff also expressed concern about the potential impact of requiring an English eligibility certificate among older Quebec anglophones. “The older you get, the less likely you are to have one, and furthermore, these certificates are issued in favour of your children, not you.”