THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON OFFICIAL LANGUAGES
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Monday, March 18, 2024
The Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages met this day at 5 p.m. [ET], to study matters relating to minority-language health services, to study the application of the Official Languages Act and of the regulations and directives made under it, within those institutions subject to the Act, and to study matters relating to minority-language health services; and to discuss committee business in camera.
Senator René Cormier (Chair) in the chair.
The Chair: Welcome, everyone. I am René Cormier, a senator from New Brunswick and chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages.
Before we begin, I wish to invite committee members participating in today’s meeting to introduce themselves.
Senator Poirier: Rose-May Poirier, New Brunswick.
[Translation]
Senator Mégie: Hello. Marie-Françoise Mégie, from Quebec.
Senator Moncion: Hello. Lucie Moncion, from Ontario.
[English]
The Chair: I wish to welcome all of you and viewers across the country who may be watching. I would like to point out that I’m taking part in this meeting from within the unceded traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe Nation.
Tonight, we begin our meeting with our study matters relating to minority-language health services. On our first panel, we are pleased to welcome Kim Barro, Chief, Performance and Partnership, Department of Health and Wellness, Government of Nova Scotia, as well as Ms. Kim Simmonds, Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Planning and Performance, Alberta Health, Government of Alberta.
Thank you both for being with us tonight and welcome to the committee. We will now hear each of your opening remarks. They will be followed by questions from the senators.
The floor is yours, Ms. Barro.
Kim Barro, Chief, Strategy Performance and Partnership, Department of Health and Wellness, Government of Nova Scotia: Thank you for the opportunity to be here today representing Nova Scotia’s Department of Health and Wellness on this important topic.
The Nova Scotia government is dedicated to fixing our provincial health care system.
Action for Health is our roadmap to achieve lasting, generational change in our health care system. It covers the core aspects of our interconnected health care system with the overarching goal of getting more care, faster, to all Nova Scotians.
Through the plan, the department has made historic investments in our infrastructure, technology and health care workers.
We are working with our partners across government and in the health sector to develop innovative solutions to old problems.
Through new technologies like Virtual Care, each and every day, Nova Scotians can find more options to access the care they need from the appropriate health care providers more quickly and efficiently.
That being said, all of these innovations and new tools are only effective if Nova Scotians know about them, can navigate to the right service and can see the benefits to their own health and that of their loved ones in these new programs and services.
Our health system is complex, and the strain on a patient and their family as they look to navigate it can add another layer of stress to an already stressful situation.
Nova Scotia has a rich and diverse history that weaves into our present day. It emphasizes the importance of serving minority-language communities fairly. It is reflected in our French-Language Services Act and the regulations that guide how we deliver health care services.
As we build on this history and welcome new Nova Scotians and their families to our province from around the globe, and as we continue to work to reach out to historically marginalized communities to deliver services and provide important information, we must continue to evolve to ensure we are providing equitable access to services, programs, and health-related information for all Nova Scotians.
For example, in 2022-23, following extensive public engagement, the Department of Health and Wellness identified the need for greater health equity and improved access to health services for many underserved and under-represented communities, which included the Acadian and francophone communities. This led to the development of the province’s first-ever health equity framework.
This framework lays the foundation to make Nova Scotia’s health system more appropriate, effective and free from barriers and discrimination. It will ensure access for members of our francophone and Acadian communities as well as other equity-seeking communities such as African-Nova Scotians and Indigenous communities.
This framework also aligns with and supports the province’s overarching Equity and Anti-Racism Strategy.
Identifying barriers for marginalized communities, often related to language, and working with our partners to address and remove them will help improve not only the health outcomes for those individuals and groups but also the efficiency and effectiveness of the entire health care system.
I know Minister Thompson wishes she were here today to participate in these important discussions, but it has been my privilege to speak on behalf of her department.
In closing, we have made great strides as we implement the province’s Action for Health strategy, but we know there is more work to be done.
We will continue to listen to all our communities to better understand their health needs and work with them to deliver the health care they deserve.
We’re providing them with more information every day to make informed decisions about their health care and ways to access more care, faster.
Through these ongoing efforts and our ongoing collaboration with all of our partners across all levels of government and in every community, from one end of our province to the other, we are building a world-class health care system for all Nova Scotians.
Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Barro. I now give the floor to Ms. Simmonds.
[Translation]
Kim Simmonds, Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Planning and Performance, Alberta Health, Government of Alberta: Thank you. On behalf of the Government of Alberta and the Minister of Health, I am pleased to be here today to share information about Alberta’s ongoing efforts to enhance health programs and services offered in French.
Since the adoption of the Government of Alberta’s French Policy in 2017, Alberta Health has continued to enhance French-language services and supports for the Francophonie in Alberta.
The French Policy guides the Government of Alberta in building a meaningful and productive relationship that results in the continued development and vitality of this important population. We are proud of the ongoing efforts to enhance health services and supports in French that we deliver. As an equal order of government, the Government of Alberta has exclusive jurisdiction for the planning, organization, and management of its health care system; as such, we do not accept responsibility for upholding the requirements of the federal Official Languages Act but acknowledge there is alignment between provincial and federal goals in serving the Francophone population.
For example, the Canada-Alberta Agreement to Work Together to Improve Health Care for Canadians contains a clause committing to equity of access for official language minority communities. While this alignment exists, the Government of Alberta invests in French-language initiatives because we acknowledge and value the significant contributions of Francophone Albertans, and ensuring their ability to access health services will continue to be a priority for Alberta.
As part of the previous 2020-2023 Alberta French Policy Action Plan, the Ministry of Health completed various initiatives. For instance, numerous public health-related resources were translated into French. This included educational materials, posters, web content, video subtitling/voiceover and/or patient-related records from English to French or vice versa.
The Government of Alberta’s upcoming 2024-2028 French Policy Action Plan identifies key initiatives and provides details on the ways we will continue to enhance services in French. Alberta Health will continue to support the translation of select resources related to continuing care, public health, government-sponsored health benefit plans, content, programs, and/or legislation.
Ongoing enhanced funding will continue for the Saint Thomas Community Health Centre in Edmonton through a clinical Alternative Relationship Plan. Funding will allow this supportive living centre built by the Francophone community to expand its primary health care services, including physiatry, family medicine, and psychiatry to Francophone Albertans. It will also continue to support the needs of an aging Francophone population with a focus on aging in place.
Furthermore, the French-language services coordinator position will be maintained. This position is particularly important as it works to support the Franco-Albertan population by coordinating translation services, helping clients navigate the health care system, updating health information documents, recruiting French-speaking health care providers and partnering with community groups and agencies to promote support for Francophone populations.
Over the next five years, Alberta Health will continue work on the comprehensive inventory of health care services that are available in French and promote these services. We will also continue updating and translating key government health resources into French.
A focus on these priority initiatives will improve Francophone Albertans’ awareness and access to the health services and supports most important to them.
The Government of Alberta receives ongoing funding that supports French-language health initiatives through various agreements. For instance, as part of the “Canada-Alberta Agreement to Work Together to Improve Health Care for Canadians,” which was formally signed and announced in December 2023, Alberta will allocate funding to incremental initiatives that will improve the availability of French health programs and services in the province.
These initiatives include developing a multi-stakeholder committee on French-language health, identifying the gaps of health care professionals; developing mental health services in French to address the gaps that Alberta’s Francophonie has identified in this sector; and launching a “Café de Paris” project where employees can acquire or maintain basic French-language skills in an informal space.
We are working closely with our stakeholders to ensure that implementation of these multifaceted initiatives meet the needs of Alberta’s Francophone community and has the most meaningful impact on improving health outcomes.
To conclude, every Albertan deserves access to the care that they need. While Alberta is not bound by the requirements of the federal Official Language Act, our province has its own French Language Policy and my comments have illustrated how our policy has successfully guided the significant work that is taking place to enhance health services in French throughout the province. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms. Simmonds. We’ll now open the floor to questions. I’d like to ask the committee members in the room to refrain from leaning too close to their microphones or removing their earpieces when doing so. This will avoid any feedback that could have a negative impact on committee staff in the room.
[English]
Colleagues, being aware of the time ahead, I suggest that for the first round, each senator will be allowed five minutes, including questions and answers from our witnesses. If time permits, we will have a second round.
We will start with the vice-chair of the committee, Senator Poirier.
Senator Poirier: Thank you to both of you for being here tonight.
During his appearance in front of our committee last April, the Minister of Health said that funding of $64.2 billion for health transfers would be given to the territories and provinces over 10 years. He also stated that the provinces and territories had agreed to respect fundamental principles in health care transfers, including equal access for equity-seeking individuals and groups.
This question is for both of you or anyone who feels like answering: Have you received these health care transfer funds? How has your government respected equal access to these funds for the francophone communities in your province or territory?
Ms. Simmonds: If it is okay, I will respond in English.
We have received funds, and we have been working closely with our francophone community to ensure that they are respectfully provided equal access. In Alberta, we work primarily with Réseau santé Alberta and l’Association canadienne-française de l’Alberta and their regional chapters to ensure that that money is appropriately allocated directly to the communities that most need it. We then work closely with them to ensure that all of the objectives of the funding are achieved.
Senator Poirier: Thank you.
The Chair: Ms. Barro, would you like to answer?
Ms. Barro: Thank you. Similarly, we work with Réseau Santé – Nouvelle-Écosse. We work with them to understand further what the needs of the francophone and Acadian populations will be and ensure that we are meeting those needs. Those all fit within our health equity framework, so the considerations of what is required for specifically the Acadian francophone populations are included in that, with first voice from those communities.
Senator Poirier: Could you can share with me what would be some of the biggest challenges for the francophone communities in a minority situation accessing health care in the provinces, that you’ve heard from these organizations and how to deal with the challenges affecting the distribution of the health transfers?
Ms. Barro: What I would say is we try to ensure we have enough French-speaking health care professionals. We are training and giving priority so that people can have health care services in the language that they prefer to speak in. For that, that would be French.
I would say we do very well with translation materials on our website and the materials people can access, but we do have challenges with human resources for health, period. We have challenges getting enough health human resource for health services. I would say for francophone providers, that would be an area where we have similar challenges with those providers speaking Mi’kmaq, as an example.
Senator Poirier: Ms. Simmonds, did you have something to add?
Ms. Simmonds: In addition to that, Alberta has a big rural population. One thing we have identified is system navigation for rural French Albertans to be able to understand how to best maximize their access to the system. More recently, working with our colleagues in the francophone community, new Canadians, and cultural differences that exist among the Francophonie as not one uniform group, is something we will be working on with them closely in the coming years.
Senator Poirier: What more or what else can the federal government do to help the provinces serve francophone communities in a minority situation better, in getting the health services they require in the language of their choice? What more could they do?
Ms. Simmonds: The funding that the federal government provided, has been a wonderful resource for us to be able to put the programs out in the communities all across the province.
Ms. Barro: I would agree that funding specifically to francophonie would be a very important asset to build on. What we receive is very appreciated, but, yes, more funding in that area would be helpful.
Senator Poirier: Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Mégie: My question is for Ms. Simmonds of the Alberta government. You mentioned that you recruit French-speaking health professionals. Where do you recruit them, and by what means? Have you been successful?
[English]
Ms. Simmonds: Nothing is as successful as we would like it to be. Health human resources are in terrible crisis across all the provinces, and finding health care professionals that can speak French is obviously an added bonus.
In Alberta, we are blessed to have Campus Saint-Jean within the University of Alberta, which provides quite a bit of francophone training not just to health care professionals but also to other professionals, such as teachers. We have been truly blessed to have that. In some of our more francophone communities, we do attempt to recruit physicians and health care professionals who speak French. However, it has obviously been difficult. However, our major advantage in Alberta is that we have Campus Saint-Jean within the University of Alberta.
I hope that addresses your question.
[Translation]
Senator Mégie: Thank you. My next question is for Ms. Barro. When she testified on April 24, 2023, Réseau Santé Nouvelle-Écosse highlighted a worrisome lack of professionals able to communicate in French. Obviously, this compromises access to health care for official language minority communities, especially for seniors, who make up vulnerable populations. Is there a university or centre in your area that can train professionals, or do you also look for them in other provinces?
[English]
Ms. Barro: We don’t have a university specific to train. We have Université Sainte-Anne in our province that would provide us with French-language support. They don’t actually have a health professional school per se, but we do partner with them to ensure that we can build competencies, particularly in areas that are really a need right now — for example, continuing care assistance to ensure we are helping in the long-term care sector and having more competencies and capacities to speak French so people can be served in their language. That is an example of how we would do that, but we don’t have a French-language university for health professionals in Nova Scotia.
I hope that answers your question.
[Translation]
Senator Mégie: I see. Thank you.
[English]
Senator Moncion: My question is for both of you. How do your ministries measure the quality and efficiency of health services provided for minority languages in your provinces? How would you measure, and what kind of results would you be getting?
Ms. Barro: I can jump in there. All our designated institutions in the health sector — the Department of Health and Wellness, the Office of Healthcare Professionals Recruitment, the Office of Addictions and Mental Health and the Department of Seniors and Long-term Care as well as our two health authorities, Nova Scotia Health and IWK Health — must publish a French language annual services plan outlining measures they will take to support French-language services and care development and what they have achieved in the last fiscal year. This plan is required per our Nova Scotia French Language Services Act. We ensure that those are all completed and that we are measuring progress and understanding how they are doing.
Senator Moncion: Thank you. And in Alberta?
Ms. Simmonds: In Alberta, we have both qualitative and quantitative metrics, but we have primarily focused on the qualitative metrics through survey work and other patient-reported outcomes and patient-reported experiences with the systems. So we are able to compare our francophone community with the broader Alberta population and control for things such as rural versus urban residence, et cetera.
In terms of quantitative metrics, we don’t publish anything specific. We have been working with specific metrics targeted toward ensuring that documents focused on public health and on health promotion are translated into French so that this material is available in French for those individuals in the community.
Senator Moncion: Thank you. Could both of you speak on the access to health care in your provinces? Is there a need for more doctors? How is the service?
Ms. Simmonds: Since I’m on, I will go first.
I think that all the provinces are in the same situation where there is a crisis of health human resources. Specifically targeting increased French health human resources is something we would like to achieve, but obviously the main goal is for all Albertans to have access to a primary care provider — which is a metric we are trying to achieve within the next year — and to have access measures in line with other provinces.
I would say that every province is quite short on all health human resources at this point.
Ms. Barro: Yes, I would agree with that. The other thing I would offer is that if we can’t provide services in French, we do have French-language service coordinators at the health authorities who act as conduits to ensure we at least have translation and somebody who can help navigate. So we have those coordinators and those navigation folks. The nurse coordinators for those health authorities also have to be bilingual.
If we can’t provide them — and sometimes we can’t because we have difficulty with all — we ensure there is navigation, coordination and translation that will help them.
Senator Moncion: Thank you.
Could you talk about the waiting lists for your provinces? For example, if I heard you correctly Ms. Simmonds, are you saying that within the next year, Alberta wants to have achieved access for everyone? Did I hear you correctly?
Ms. Simmonds: Every Albertan should have access to a primary care provider. That is the goal.
Senator Moncion: And that will be done within a year — I think it is a great achievement. How about Nova Scotia?
Ms. Barro: Nova Scotia is really working on the strategy in terms of how we can attach folks to primary care providers. We’re looking at ideas of collaborative care — health homes, health neighbourhoods — so that we would have a collaborative approach. We don’t think we will be able to get one singular health professional for every person, but we should be able to provide care in a collaborative way.
We have also opened up many access points in Nova Scotia, maximizing the scope of many of our health professionals — pharmacists, for example. We have several community pharmacist locations in some francophone communities that would offer primary care services in French. We have VirtualCareNS, and we are working on making sure we have some access to French virtual care. We are trying to ensure that people get the services they need when they need it, as well as making sure they have continuity of care within a primary care-type approach, looking at collaborative practices.
I hope that helps you understand our situation.
Senator Moncion: Thank you. I have a quick question. Do you have an identity aspect on your health cards to identify who is francophone, who is anglophone and who is receiving the service and what kind of service they are receiving? Or is that not an option that you have in your provinces?
Ms. Barro: No. We just implemented in Nova Scotia an ability to identify your language preferences, your cultural background, et cetera, so that we can start to monitor in a more rigorous and analytic way what services our communities are needing and then targeting those needs based on that evidence. With our health card, yes, we do have the connection.
Senator Moncion: Thank you.
Ms. Barro: It’s optional. Folks identify themselves or not, so it’s based on their preference.
Senator Moncion: And in Alberta?
Ms. Simmonds: We don’t have ours on our health card. We have a self-identification process so that individuals, once they hit the system, if they require translation services or wish to have services provided in a different language, that is identified. Every time they come back to receive care, that’s identified, so there will either be a translator, translation services, or French or a particular language provider for them, but we don’t have them on our health care cards.
Ms. Barro: Nova Scotia would provide that similar service as well, making sure that they’re identified as needing extra supports for the language.
The Chair: Thank you for that answer, Ms. Barro.
Senator Clement: Hello and welcome to the two witnesses. You have beautiful views in the windows behind you. You’re from beautiful communities.
I want to come back to the issue of the changing demographics of francophone populations. I guess you are seeing more new Canadians. Are you keeping data on those changing demographics? Who are your partners in providing services to those changing communities, or do you have partners? How are you adjusting your services to meet their unique needs?
I think Ms. Barro, you mentioned something about new Canadians, and, I think, Ms. Simmonds, you mentioned an equity-seeking framework. If you can lean into how you’re providing services to those new Canadians.
Ms. Barro: I can speak from a Nova Scotia perspective. We keep abreast of all of our new immigrants and making sure we’re understanding where they’re coming from. We work with several community organizations, immigrant settlement organizations, et cetera, so that we understand who are coming into our province and what needs they have. Sometimes, it’s a matter of language, but they’re coming very vulnerable, from areas of the world that would require even special services, trauma care, mental health and addiction, et cetera. We work very closely to try to understand, because we have quite an influx of francophone-speaking new immigrants, and they, honestly, in our understanding so far, require a different kind of care in many ways than our Indigenous, Acadian and francophone communities.
We try to, absolutely, keep abreast of those through immigration services and our community-based organizations and partnerships there. Also, we have identification of folks through our mental health and addiction programs.
Ms. Simmonds: Alberta has a French policy action plan that has just been updated for 2024-28, so it takes that holistic approach. Similarly to Nova Scotia, we work closely with our colleagues, with labour and immigration. In terms of health care, we have a much more local decision-making approach to making sure that the right wraparound support services are provided to new Canadians and to francophone Canadians as part of the new funding that we’ve received as part of the shared health priorities. We’re actually working very closely with the communities to identify with those coordinators in other roles what additional services they may require.
That hasn’t been fully developed yet. One of the areas that has been identified by the community that we will be working closely with is mental health and addiction supports so that they have those in French, and also that they understand how to navigate the system, which can be extremely difficult for any new Canadian.
Senator Clement: Can I follow up there with you? When you say a more local approach, do you mean in terms of the partners you’re working with? What do you mean by “local”?
Ms. Simmonds: We mean local community partnerships. We work with Réseau santé Alberta as the broad group, but there are actually local and community differences between, for example, Edmonton and other rural communities that might have newcomers, and the supports that are available are different.
With all of our health care approach right now, we’re taking a much more localized decision making and more local support approach.
Senator Clement: Let me go to Nova Scotia. I want to ask about agreements that you have interprovincially with Quebec. I think that you do in terms of matters of delivering services in French. How has that helped, or has it helped at all to have that kind of agreement? Does it touch on health care?
Ms. Barro: I’m actually not familiar with specific agreements with Quebec for services to support us in health care. I’m sorry. I’m unaware. My apologies.
Senator Clement: Maybe not specific to health care but generally. Do you have any interprovincial agreements with Quebec around francophone issues?
Ms. Barro: Not that I’m aware of. My apologies.
Senator Clement: Thank you.
The Chair: We’re doing this study to understand how the federal government can help provinces and territories better in terms of delivering services. One of the challenges that might be there is the cooperation between the federal government, your governments, municipalities, communities, French language health networks and francophone post-secondary institutions. I would like to hear you on those efforts that your government might do to have better cooperation with the federal government. What can you tell us on that topic?
Ms. Barro: We have several federal-provincial-territorial committees, et cetera, that we would work with the federal government to build relationships and understand mutual needs and interests. There are always jurisdictional issues, particularly in health care.
The Chair: We want to hear about them so that we can understand what the federal government could do differently if there are issues.
Ms. Barro: Our deputy minister and our minister are co-chairs with the federal government this year, so I can only speak from a health perspective. What we really want to understand further is how to have more collaboration and mutual understanding of the issues we face delivering health care in our provinces, how extremely complex they are, and more opportunities for mutual understanding. We actually understand how things work on the ground, and we appreciate that the federal government has funds to bear and expectations for us as a country and as provinces. I think that it could be more consultative, more partnership oriented. Sometimes it’s perceived as a bit more parental than equal, if I can be so bold.
The Chair: Thank you. Ms. Simmonds?
Ms. Simmonds: I would echo that, respecting the roles of the province, vis-à-vis the federal government, and understanding everything that Ms. Barro said, we would support. There’s a need for commonality in health care delivery across the provinces, which we understand, but there’s also a unique one size fits all.
When we look, for example, at the size and scale of Alberta compared to a province such as Nova Scotia or P.E.I., the way in which you would be delivering health care has to be slightly different, and so understanding that a single way of doing things may not work, but understanding that we do need to have similar outcomes and that all Canadians expect to have a certain level of health care that they receive. We do, of course, support our colleagues in Nova Scotia leading the FTP work from the provincial perspective.
The last piece that I would add that was new for me to learn in the last year is definitely the intersection of the federal and provincial government when it comes to new Canadians, refugees and more vulnerable Canadians. Understanding the specific roles and areas of support that the federal government could provide to that population would be, I think, of benefit, but that is something that I have not completely dug into. It’s something that our local community supports in the francophone community have identified as being an increasing issue for them.
The Chair: Thank you. I have a specific question concerning the Canada Health Act. Should the Canada Health Act be revised to include specific commitments for official languages or a long-term financial commitment for official language minority communities, similar to the act respecting early learning and child care in Canada? Do you think it would help you?
Ms. Simmonds: From Alberta, consistent and long-term funding is always appreciated. Essentially, Alberta provides that money straight through to different community groups who need to do the work. For them, to be able to plan and develop their programs, grow and expand and retain staff, long-term funding agreements would be extremely beneficial to the province.
Ms. Barro: Yes, I would say Nova Scotia would agree with that approach. Long and sustained things that we can count on would be very important in our province. The Canada Health Transfer would be a sustainable way for us to expect funding in our province. The way that we’re kind of doing bilaterals, or whatever, gets to certain ends, but it makes us a little bit more vulnerable in the area of health care.
To your question about should we open the Canada Health Act, I don’t know. We get a lot of legal advice, et cetera, but, certainly from our perspective, several elements in the Canada Health Act are antiquated and could use some updating. I haven’t looked at it from an official languages perspective as to what that would do. I do know that inclusion of maybe more of that, but including mental health and addictions, home and community care and those types of things would be a much more fulsome approach as to how we work together as a federation.
The Chair: I have one last quick question before I give the floor to my colleagues. There is always a need for support for caregivers. Would you support a national caregiver strategy? Do you think your governments could be open to that?
Ms. Barro: Part of our strategy would be home first and ensuring that people are able to age in place, as Ms. Simmonds from Alberta has said, and strategies to keep people in their own communities around their loved ones, et cetera. That requires us to support caregivers and have supports and benefits for them to look after their loved ones in their communities and be engaged in that way. I can only imagine it would help.
Ms. Simmonds: Of course, Alberta supports aging in place and providing care in the community so that people can have a long and healthy life outside of an institution, so we would support that. Obviously, with regard to the specific means through which we would be able to provide that to Albertans and all Canadians best, the details would need to be worked out, but we do support activities that support people being able to age in place and caregiver support.
The Chair: Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Mégie: My question is for Ms. Barro. We managed to find an article on the Internet in English that mentioned that Nova Scotia has a health equity framework that ensures equitable access for official language minority communities, but we were unable to find a French version. Is there a French version?
[English]
Ms. Barro: There is a French version, and it was just published two weeks ago. It didn’t come out, in fairness, with the English, but we do have a French version now.
[Translation]
Senator Mégie: Once it is published, could you please provide a copy to the committee?
I have a question primarily for Ms. Simmonds, but which Ms. Barro can also answer. I’m going back to the days of the pandemic. I asked myself the following: how did the transfer of public health information take place for people living in an official language minority community, to provide them with information about vaccination and new health measures, among other things?
Did you receive feedback from knowledgeable people? Can you tell us about this difficult period?
[English]
Ms. Simmonds: Thank you so much for the opportunity to answer that question. One of the reasons I specifically mentioned Réseau santé Alberta, whom we with to get French information out is because of the pandemic and ensuring materials could be translated into French. Obviously, during the pandemic, for everyone, translating and getting information out quickly and in a timely way was difficult. We were fortunate when there was the ability to align to the Public Health Agency of Canada, which provided information in French, that this could be provided to Albertans, and in fact, all Canadians. But that is certainly one of the reasons that we focused on making sure that we have good and available information in French for our francophone colleagues in Alberta.
[Translation]
Senator Mégie: Thank you. Ms. Barro, would you also like to respond?
[English]
Ms. Barro: Similar to Nova Scotia, because of the urgency and the speed with which we were dealing with COVID, there were probably many communities that felt they didn’t have enough information in their own language, and francophone communities would certainly be one of those.
Again, making sure that that was addressed as a cornerstone in the health equity framework and that we’re doing a better job ensuring we have translation of materials, et cetera, will help people understand more and make those decisions for themselves with the right information.
[Translation]
Senator Mégie: Thank you.
[English]
Senator Poirier: At the beginning, I asked a question to both of you about what more the federal government could do to help the provinces serve better, their francophone communities in a minority situation or the anglophone community, if we were talking about Quebec, who is in a minority situation. If I remember correctly, the answer I got was that more funding or more finances would definitely help.
At the same time, I also heard that the existing problem they have is maybe more about the manpower or getting people to come in and do the work, and that each province is exactly the same. If each province is exactly the same and if the funds they get now is not providing the solution, I wonder what more funding would do and whether that’s the avenue we should be taking. Should we be looking to see if the federal government could help in another way that would help with that recruitment process? Or is that a role that the provinces should have, for example, an awareness program to make sure that when our students leave high school they understand the importance of the lack of manpower we have in the health care systems, specifically, and in the minority situation? Is there anything the federal government can do to help encourage students to study that? Should we be looking at something else if funding is not fixing the problem right now and if the same problem exists across every province, specifically in minority situations? I’m just kind of seeing what you think of that, if there’s not a way or if there’s any other way that we can help to get more people involved in having the interest to study and become health care providers?
Ms. Barro: I can speak to that. We do have a joint federal-territorial-provincial committee working on health human resources. We collectively, with the federal government, have a plan for what we need to do there.
We do have some work that we’re doing together in the health human resource space. Through that plan, the federal government has identified what we could do to support each other. I don’t know the specifics of the plan right now, it’s not coming to my mind, but we are working collectively together on a health human resource plan.
Senator Poirier: Is the situation better today than it was before the plan was in place?
Ms. Barro: The plan is a work-in-progress. It’s jointly developed and will now be implemented. Each of the provinces are doing a lot to try to understand recruitment.
I can speak to Nova Scotia. We’ve done several missions to other countries to try to recruit health care professionals and look at all opportunities. We have passed an access to care act that would shorten the length of credentialing, so we’re looking at countries that have a similar standard of training and credentialing that Nova Scotia has. We’re accepting those folks in a much more expedited way. We also have the ability to accept, from any Canadian jurisdiction, health care providers.
That might set up a bit of a contest between us all, but we are doing a lot of things in the recruitment space. I would say that we have had some success in that, but the demands still probably outweigh the amount of resources. Professional health care recruitment is helping, but we still have problems.
Ms. Simmonds: In Alberta, we don’t look at it just as health. It is an excellent question.
Health human resources is an issue, for sure. When we look at how we’ve allocated over $5 million to French language services, a lot of it is about awareness, coordination, liaison, services that can be provided by someone who is not necessarily a health care provider. We’re trying to ensure that even things that are informal, such as the Café de Paris, which is to help health care providers who, like myself, don’t practise French that much to keep up with their French so that they are able to serve communities and francophone Albertans when they come in to receive care.
While the health human resources issue obviously exists, there are other mechanisms by which we can support members of our francophone community to ensure that they’re aware of and can navigate the health system in their preferred language.
Senator Poirier: Thank you.
The Chair: Ms. Simmonds, I know Alberta quite well. You have a lot of very good francophone cultural organizations that could help you with those Cafés de Paris, making sure that you can speak French, all of you. Thank you for that.
[Translation]
Senator Moncion: I’m going to give Ms. Simmonds a chance to practise her French, since she mentioned that she rarely has the opportunity to do so.
The ACFA commissioned KPMG to conduct a study to better understand the needs of Francophones in terms of social and mental health services. The findings seem to indicate that French-language services are nearly non-existent. Could you comment on this information we have?
[English]
Ms. Simmonds: I’m not aware of a study by KPMG, but I can certainly look into it. To your point, there was identified a massive gap in terms of people’s awareness and understanding of what does exist in French and, really, a lack of a comprehensive offering of services in French.
As part of the work we’re doing, one directory in terms of health care professionals and health services that are offered in French will be put into development in the next two years so that it is much easier for people to find those services.
My understanding is that the services exist, but, obviously, they’re not apparent to an individual who isn’t very familiar with where to look. That’s what we really need to improve on, that access.
Senator Moncion: Thank you. Could I have a comment from you, Ms. Barro, on the same issue in Nova Scotia?
Ms. Barro: I’m not familiar with the KPMG study either. Could you ask the question again?
Senator Moncion: The availability of francophone resources for mental health patients.
Ms. Barro: We have done quite a bit in terms of offering e-mental health services in French in Nova Scotia. Many of our e-mental health services are available in French, such as Therapy Assistance Online, Tranquility, Togetherall, Kids Help Phone, and the Nova Scotia Firefighter and Ground Search and Rescue Volunteer Assistance Program.
We have, I would say, focused on a lot of e-mental health to make sure that they are available in French.
The Chair: Ms. Barro and Ms. Simmonds, I want to thank you so much for your contribution to this study. It will certainly help us to better understand the issues you have in your provinces and how the federal government can help your provinces.
[Translation]
Thank you for your contribution and your participation.
Dear colleagues, we’ll take a short break, but I’d like to move in camera to give you some information before we welcome our second panel of witnesses, with your consent.
Thank you for joining us today.
(The committee continued in camera.)
(The committee resumed in public.)
The Chair: Colleagues, for our second panel we will be hearing from members of the Senate administration and Translation Bureau regarding translation and interpretation issues.
We now welcome Ms. Shaila Anwar, Clerk Assistant of the Committees Directorate, whom I would like to congratulate for her appointment as Clerk of the Senate and Clerk of the Parliaments. Congratulations, Ms. Anwar. We also welcome Ms. Maxime Fortin, Principal Clerk of the Committees Directorate.
From the Translation Bureau, we welcome Mr. Jean-François Lymburner, Chief Executive Officer of the Translation Bureau, Mr. Matthew Ball, Vice-President of the Service to Parliament and Interpretation, as well as Ms. Annie Trépanier, Vice-President of Policy and Corporate Services.
Welcome and thank you for joining us. Let’s begin with your opening remarks.
Ms. Anwar, the floor is yours.
Shaila Anwar, Clerk Assistant of the Committees Directorate, Senate of Canada: Thank you very much, honourable senators.
I am here today in my capacity as Clerk Assistant of the Committees Directorate, primarily because your committees are the largest users of interpretation and translation services here in the Senate.
I am here with Maxime Fortin.
Maxime Fortin, Principal Clerk of the Committees Directorates, Senate of Canada: Good evening. As stated by Senator Cormier, I am the Principal Clerk of the Committees Directorate and I am here to represent the Senate Administration, which is responsible for the partnership agreement between the Senate and the Translation Bureau.
[English]
To give you some background, the Senate has a partnership agreement with the Translation Bureau that sets out the roles and responsibilities of each institution with regard to the provision of linguistic services — translation and interpretation services. The current agreement covers the period from April 1, 2022, to March 31, 2027.
[Translation]
As far as interpretation is concerned, we experienced some limitations during the pandemic. However, since September 2022, we have returned to a normal schedule for committees and the House.
As you know, since the fall of 2022, the Senate has chosen to return to in-person activities. Senators therefore attend committee meetings and sittings of the House in person. The decision to end hybrid sittings has had a direct and positive impact on capacity issues. Since then, Senate committees have returned to a full schedule, and we no longer have the same capacity problems as when we held hybrid meetings.
As a reminder, before the pandemic, witnesses at committee meetings could appear by videoconference. Since we weren’t using the Zoom platform, we were limited in terms of the number of witnesses who could appear by videoconference at the same time, so there were fewer virtual witnesses.
Ms. Anwar: We have some good news in this regard. According to our latest statistics, which cover the period from September to December 2023, around 70% of witnesses appear in person and less than 30% do so virtually. So the majority of participants appear in person, especially if we include senators.
On the Senate side, the number of interpretation-related incidents causing meeting delays or cancellations is also very low, at around 5% of meetings. This is a reduction of around 50% compared with the same period in 2022.
The majority of problems are identified before the meeting, either during the mandatory technical tests that are carried out a few days before a meeting, or during the sound test that is carried out within 30 minutes of the start of each meeting.
The main issue currently facing the Senate is the flexibility to add additional meetings simultaneously with other committee meetings, especially during periods when the Senate is sitting at the same time or for longer hours. It should be noted that the interpretation services are not the only ones that cannot support additional meetings from time to time; the transcription service, the clerks and the multimedia service also face challenges in that regard.
At times, the number of services available for non-parliamentary activities is also reduced. In an attempt to fill this gap, the Senate is currently conducting tests using different formats, such as remote interpretation.
Ms. Fortin: Obviously, the pandemic has had less visible impact on translation services.
As far as the Senate is concerned, the issues are the same as before, namely those relating to quality and delivery times, especially with the advances in and access to automated translation software.
I’ll stop here, but we’ll be happy to answer your questions after our Translation Bureau colleagues have spoken.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Fortin and Ms. Anwar. I now give the floor to Mr. Lymburner.
Jean-François Lymburner, Chief Executive Officer, Translation Bureau, Public Services and Procurement Canada: Good morning and thank you, Mr. Chair. I would first like to acknowledge the presence of my colleagues Annie Trépanier, vice-president, Policy and Corporate Services, and Matthew Ball, vice-president, Services to Parliament and Interpretation. I would also like to acknowledge our partners from the Senate Administration who are here with us.
Mr. Chair, honourable senators, thank you for this invitation. I am pleased to appear before the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages in this special year, when the Translation Bureau is celebrating 90 years since its creation in 1934.
In fact, we are celebrating a double anniversary, as it is now 65 years since simultaneous interpretation made its debut in the Canadian Parliament. Allow me to acknowledge Patricia Leguen, Claudette Branchard and Ronald Hoffman, who are in the booth today to interpret the meeting.
[English]
Mr. Chair, interpretation has been at the forefront in recent years in light of issues that cause difficulty with the delivery of services. The health and safety incidents suffered by interpreters had a major impact at both the operational and the health and safety levels. We pulled out all the stops in order to understand and prevent these incidents. A number of factors have since improved the situation.
Among other things, the studies we ran and continue to conduct with our parliamentary partners and various specialists have enabled us to protect our interpreters better.
The noticeable increase in the number of people who choose to meet on-site instead of virtually is also reducing the risk of problems. Indeed, I commend your decision, honourable senators, to hold your meeting in person. I encourage witnesses to follow your example when possible.
That being said, incidents are still happening, even in person, which is why we’ve put an intervention and follow-up protocol in place in collaboration with an audiologist and doctors. This protocol helps us to protect our interpreters’ hearing when there is an incident.
[Translation]
At the same time, we are pressing ahead with our efforts to encourage the next generation of interpreters across the country and strengthen our interpretation capacity. These efforts have enabled us to cover all the interpreted events scheduled in the regular program established by the Senate Administration.
We are also improving our flexibility in order to respond to last-minute requests and unforeseen events. For example, we maintain a team of interpreters on standby, ready to quickly fill in for colleagues if required.
In addition, we have just introduced, with our parliamentary partners, an ad hoc microphone approval process. This means that when a witness advises us that he or she intends to use a microphone that is not on our list, we can confirm that the microphone is safe enough for the testimony to be interpreted.
We also continue to meet regularly with our parliamentary counterparts to review priorities, discuss processes and optimize the allocation of our resources.
[English]
Mr. Chair, as the sole provider for Parliament’s language needs since 1934 and an optional provider since 1995, chosen by a large number of federal departments and agencies, the Translation Bureau is committed to promoting the equal use of French and English.
We are proud to have developed an expertise in providing translation services during emergencies. For example, we translate weather event alerts in less than two minutes.
Our experience during the pandemic and the report of the Commissioner of Official Languages have shown that the government needed to improve its capacity to communicate quickly in both official languages. With this in mind, the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat has called on us and various departments to create a repository of bilingual messages that can be sent out quickly in different situations.
A pilot version of the repository will be made public soon, and we hope that it will be adopted and supplemented by all government departments and parliamentary institutions.
[Translation]
Mr. Chair, in an emergency or at any other time, quality remains the Translation Bureau’s watchword. We want to be worthy of the trust placed in us by Parliament and all the departments and agencies that choose to do business with us.
Our interpreters are duly accredited and provide highly accurate interpretation.
Our translators apply rigorous quality standards.
Our terminologists leave nothing to chance in their research.
Of course, we use technologies such as machine translation, but with care and always under the supervision of our highly qualified staff.
[English]
Again, thank you for giving us the opportunity to talk about what we are doing to serve parliamentarians, public servants and Canadians efficiently. Ms. Trépanier, Mr. Ball, our colleagues and I are at your disposal to take any questions. Thank you.
[Translation]
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Lymburner.
We’ll now open the floor to questions. Colleagues, I would remind you that we allow five minutes for questions and answers. If time permits, we’ll go around the table a second time.
Senator Moncion: I thought I’d go last, as I’ve already asked you a number of questions. In the notes provided to us, we go back to 2016, but I know that the Translation Bureau’s situation was impacted before that period.
Can you talk about the budget cuts that the Translation Bureau has had to deal with over the last few years? These cuts have caused certain problems, particularly regarding the accessibility of education programs in universities, resulting in fewer people graduating with a degree in interpretation.
Mr. Lymburner: Thank you for your question, senator. I’ll turn to Ms. Trépanier for the period before 2016, since I joined the Translation Bureau fairly recently.
However, as far as the budget is concerned, its reduction has obviously had many impacts.
I’m going to start by talking about grants. The Translation Bureau is truly a driving force for the language industry in Canada. The capacity it develops allows us to hire students and support certain programs.
Given that the Translation Bureau is celebrating its 90th anniversary, I’ve had the chance to attend a number of events. There used to be scholarships. Obviously, certain budgetary issues prevent us from supporting scholarship programs as we did in the past.
The Translation Bureau still hires almost all the translators who graduate from the few programs offered in Canadian universities. I’ll be honest with you: with artificial intelligence and the incidents I mentioned in my opening remarks, this profession won’t always be as attractive to young people who want a career in the language industry.
We’re trying hard to change this trend, to target even younger people, people who are interested in reading, in French, in languages, and who want an exciting career.
As far as interpreters are concerned, there are only two university programs left in Canada: York University and the University of Ottawa.
The Translation Bureau is doing everything it can to support these programs by providing technical support or teachers.
Senator, we are also currently working with two universities to develop two other programs elsewhere in the country to increase the number of interpreters. Once again, we hire almost all the graduates of our program.
I’m nearing the end of my answer, because you raised several points in your question.
The Translation Bureau’s optional status since 1995 is a bit dated. You mentioned 2016, so we have to be careful. If we can’t always maintain a workforce, we have to be careful, given that some departments have the option of doing business with us or not. At that point, we have to be judicious and make sure we sell or market our services well and make them understand that the Translation Bureau offers high-quality work and excellent revision. Yes, we use technology, but we use it wisely. We have to be careful about that. The fact that several departments can develop their own workforces limits and fragments the language market in Canada. I’ll stop here.
Senator Moncion: I think some people even choose not to have their documents translated or not to use your services, no?
Mr. Lymburner: That’s a good point. Not doing it... I think that translating certain documents is not a matter of choice. Indeed, certain documents of lesser value that used to be translated, such as emails or various documents with less visibility, won’t be translated as often.
Annie Trépanier, Vice-President, Policy and Corporate Services, Translation Bureau, Public Services and Procurement Canada: Thank you for your question. We are indeed seeing certain trends. The Translation Bureau is receiving more and more large volumes of translation rather than emails and the like. These are the trends we’re seeing. We receive large volumes of translation rather than one-off items.
The Chair: Can you explain... Much to my surprise, I didn’t know it was optional. Obviously, we read about it when we studied the official languages bill. We also made recommendations in our report to codify the role of the Translation Bureau. Can you explain why, historically, departments have had the option of calling on your services or not?
Mr. Lymburner: As I mentioned, since 1995 the Translation Bureau has had revolving fund status. This allows us to charge fees for our services. We have to remain competitive. Obviously, it may seem like a good option for several departments to do business with the Translation Bureau, but in a context of cutbacks, people will try to cut costs and may go directly to the private sector.
All in all, the Translation Bureau remains a recognized centre of expertise in Canada and one of the largest in the world. It’s becoming increasingly difficult for us to maintain this centre of expertise if resources are divided and people who could potentially come and work at the Translation Bureau, within an impressively rigorous framework, are offered positions just about everywhere. This limits our ability to offer services other than translation. It’s the same thing for technology. If we sell as much technology as we can to as many organizations as we can, our buying power dwindles a bit.
That doesn’t mean we can’t offer services. I can tell you that over 70% of agencies and departments still do business with us. Some have even tried to do things on their own. Sometimes with classifications — I don’t want to go into detail about human resources, but the Translation Bureau is the only government body in the country that can hire translators. Our translators are the only ones within the translator classification. It’s possible that in other groups and other places, bilingual people like us, who may not have quite the required training, are able to translate a little. That’s not to say that they don’t do a good job, but they could be required to translate as a result of cost-cutting measures, for example.
The Chair: Thank you. I have some sub-questions, but I’ll yield the floor.
Senator Poirier: I would like to thank the interpreters for the exceptional and essential work they do for the official languages in Parliament.
My first question is for the Translation Bureau. Have you made a request for new funding in the next budget? If so, how much money have you asked for and how would this money ensure the essential continuity of the Translation Bureau? If not, why haven’t you made your request?
Mr. Lymburner: That’s an excellent question, Mr. Chair. Once again, I’ll give an initial answer, but Annie can add to it.
Yes, we have obviously applied for new funding in the next budget, which we are all eagerly awaiting. There are about three or four categories of funds, including funds to support parliamentarians. We offer them a service and our funding is fixed. Your demands are increasing a little here and on the parliamentary side, so we have a fixed demand for parliamentary services. We’re asking for funds to set up scholarship programs to help universities.
We’re also asking for funding for the development of indigenous languages. We’re getting more and more requests for indigenous languages, but to guarantee a certain volume, we’d like to be able to expand and find people who know the different languages, because there are several of them. We’ve included a request to that effect in the next budget. We know that our demands will be competing with those of several colleagues from the national capital region and other government departments. That’s basically what we’ve asked for. Annie, have I missed something?
Ms. Trépanier: At the moment, we’re reviewing all our options, and the process is still ongoing. We’re currently looking at all of this in terms of the amounts involved.
Mr. Lymburner: To put it simply, like all industries in recent years, salaries... We deal with Translation Bureau people for most of your work, but when possible, we can also deal with the private sector. Like just about everywhere else, costs have gone up. As I was saying, our envelope for supporting parliamentarians is fixed. We ask for money to adjust the amounts and reflect the current cost of living.
Senator Poirier: Have you met Jean-Yves Duclos since he was appointed Minister of Public Services and Procurement? If so, has he been responsive and open to your requests and concerns?
Mr. Lymburner: Personally, I’ve been in office since January 22 and I haven’t met Minister Duclos, but I know that Public Services and Procurement Canada is well aware of the Translation Bureau’s situation. We’re extremely well supported.
Senator Poirier: Will you be meeting him soon or have you asked to meet him?
Mr. Lymburner: When required, I submit all Translation Bureau issues and files through my deputy minister. I know that Mr. Duclos is very familiar with the work of the Translation Bureau, but he may have met my predecessors. I’m going to turn to Matthew Ball, who was chief executive officer, and Annie.
Matthew Ball, Vice-President, Services to Parliament and Interpretation, Translation Bureau, Public Services and Procurement Canada: I’ve been with the Translation Bureau for several decades. Normally, I meet my boss, who meets his boss. It’s rare that I meet the minister at my level, but as Mr. Lymburner said, we regularly brief our superiors on all the issues and questions we face.
Senator Poirier: We know that the lack of qualified interpreters is a problem that still hasn’t been resolved. What is the Translation Bureau doing to recruit new interpreters? What can the federal government do to help with this shortage?
Mr. Lymburner: That’s an excellent question, Mr. Chair. As I said, interpreters are basically translators; that’s the common base. We need to recruit them and get young people interested in translation. It’s often afterwards that they specialize in fields like interpretation. We really need to get into the universities, increase our presence and make sure that there are more programs than the two or so that still exist in Canada. That’s the first step. The Translation Bureau is also very involved in accrediting interpreters. I have colleagues here with me and we make sure... It’s an extremely demanding job from a cognitive point of view: people listen while they speak and look.
So we’ve increased the frequency of tests to try and attract people. I also know that my predecessors tried to recruit internationally. Canada has a very good reputation when it comes to its interpreters, which is very good. Once again, being able to recruit and bring in people who want to work is not so simple, but we are doing everything we can to increase the number of interpreters to serve parliamentarians.
Senator Poirier: Thank you.
Senator Mégie: Thank you to our witnesses who have come today to enlighten us on translation and interpretation. I wanted to know this: in the context of a bilingual institution, do you have linguistic data on the staff who work in the Senate? If so, what observations have you made about these data and, if not, do you think that data collection would be necessary to ensure the proper application of the Official Languages Act?
Mr. Lymburner: Mr. Chair, I’m not sure I understood the question about linguistic data.
Senator Mégie: I’m talking about the staff who work in the Senate and who are hired, the proportion of francophones, anglophones, allophones; do you have that data?
Ms. Anwar: Not at present, senator, but we can certainly ask human resources; there are positions within the Senate Administration requiring a certain level of bilingualism, for example committee clerks must be fully fluent in both official languages. There are also positions where it may not be necessary to have the same level of fluency in both official languages. As far as Senate staff are concerned, I’m not sure whether we have this data. The data probably exists, but we can certainly ask human resources to find out more about Senate Administration staff positions.
Mr. Lymburner: As far as the Translation Bureau is concerned, we have about a hundred translators assigned to translating for parliamentarians. We mainly translate from English into French, but some of our employees translate from French into English, so it’s the other way around. As for interpreters, we have about 150 with whom we do business and who are, of course, bilingual.
Senator Mégie: Are the selection criteria fair whether they are anglophones or francophones?
Mr. Lymburner: On our side, it often comes with the job.
Mr. Ball: There is an accreditation process for both the translators who produce the texts and the interpreters who deliver the spoken word. All interpreters are accredited in both directions, so an interpreter in an English booth can work into French and an interpreter in a French booth can work into English, but generally, at the Parliament of Canada, the employees in the booths work into their mother tongue. On the translation side, we hire on an as-needed basis. So most of the work at the Canadian Parliament is done from English into French; there is still a lot of French into English translation, and we make sure we have the staff in place to meet Parliament’s needs.
Senator Mégie: I have another question that I’ve already asked Ms. Anwar, and I’d like your opinion, because we’ve been working together on this for a long time. I notice that when we are given the committee’s reports to work on, it’s always a pile in English and a pile in French. When we do the studies in the committee, it’s often complicated, and it’s even more complicated for francophones, because we tend to read the report in French, but when we feel that there’s something not quite right with the translation, we fall back on the English version. So we have a double task.
We wondered if the original and translated versions of bills and other documents could be presented side by side in two columns. We discussed this, and it seems logistically difficult to do. However, in some documents we do it. It’s easier to go from one to the other. Ms. Anwar has suggested a solution to tide us over in the meantime: in committees, we now use paragraph numbers instead of page numbers, so we stop looking for page numbers that don’t match. I have to say thank you, because it’s worked well so far with paragraph numbering. I’d like to hear from you about the possibility of having the texts side by side one day, so that it’s easy to follow.
Mr. Lymburner: Thank you for your question. As far as the format is concerned, I’m sure that the Translation Bureau is able to produce documents with text side by side. Having seen how the documents are translated, there is already a way of looking at them to make sure that each paragraph is properly translated. The translator is not always responsible for formatting. The translator concentrates on respecting the spirit of the text to be translated; we also have editors who do page layout — think of presentations and tables in presentations. One of the first things I noticed when I arrived at the Translation Bureau was that it was that team of editors that ensured that the document was in the required format. This may not always be the translator’s job, but it can be done at the editing stage, because we have teams of editors who can do the page layout. Ms. Trépanier or Mr. Ball may have something to add.
Mr. Ball: Most of our language professionals work on content, not form, so parliamentary translators work in platforms in which the layout is not even visible. For example, when they translate the Senate Hansard and the committee proceedings, they work with columns. However, publication choices are left to the Senate Administration. The Translation Bureau serves you in terms of content, but not in terms of form.
Senator Mégie: Thank you.
Senator Clement: First, to the interpreters, what a remarkable job you do! Your work is essential, but since you’re in those booths in the back, we don’t even see you; it’s a bit mysterious. When I come here with students to tour the Senate and the committee rooms, they often ask me what goes on in those booths.
We have work to do to shed light on things, to highlight this profession and get young people involved. I think there’s still an interest, but it’s a matter of talking favourably about the profession and presenting it well. I’d like to come back to the subject of occupational injuries for a better understanding. To attract the next generation, you have to make sure that people are comfortable, otherwise it’s a disaster. A hybrid situation is more dangerous. I’d like to understand why there are fewer dangers when you’re face-to-face. Then I have a question about international recruitment.
Mr. Lymburner: That’s a very good question about health and safety, Mr. Chair. It will soon be four years since the start of the pandemic; we will all remember that in 2020, our knowledge of Teams, Zoom and all these tools was, all in all, fairly limited. Most people started working from home full time — as I see you with your computer here, I’m reminded that we were having meetings even though we didn’t have a microphone.
The whole noise environment was quite chaotic. As my colleagues have mentioned, in 2024, we’ve reduced the number of incidents by mastering the technology. Here, I can guarantee that the microphone is of high quality, my colleagues have all done sound tests, and we can even tell you that the incidents — because there are still some, as I mentioned at the beginning of my speech — that we now perceive are incidents that are, for the most part, caused by human error. I think we have a much better grasp of the tools, even in our own families. Now people are used to Zoom and virtual meetings; we all have little headphones, but here, we guarantee the sound quality.
At the start, the quality was so mediocre — it’s a system. It’s a sound system.
If a witness is in Vancouver, a number of factors come into play, including bandwidth and the quality of the microphones. To remedy this, the interpreters behind tended to turn up the volume to make sure they could hear. So, volume is an issue.
Quality is the key to mastery. When we talk about preferring “in-person” activities, it’s because we are very familiar with the technology here, just like our colleagues in Parliament. There’s a lot of renovation work underway, but we’re already at the table to ensure that the technical requirements will be met and that we’ll also have good visibility. People watch you a lot when you’re in the middle of a debate.
That’s good, because we master the technology. However, if someone appears on a small corner of the screen with rather poor sound quality, the interpreters are not going to invent words if they cannot be sure of their accuracy.
So I hope that answers the question, Mr. Chair. Technical errors still occur. You can see the microphone here. The last incidents we experienced were caused by human error. People talk and get too close to the microphone or drop it.
I know that warnings are issued at the start of committee meetings. Honestly, based on everything I’ve read about incidents over the past two years, sound quality is becoming less and less of an issue. In terms of warnings, I think that we could even tell people not to turn on their earpiece or to be careful if they’re at home and participating in another meeting or if they turn on a radio.
That doesn’t mean that it’s impossible.
Senator Clement: In other words, we have more control over our surroundings in person. Does the other place experience more incidents than the Senate, considering that it still holds hybrid meetings?
Mr. Lymburner: As far as incidents are concerned, I’m going to ask Mr. Ball for the statistics, but I know that incidents still occur with some of our clients. At a recent Internal Economy Committee meeting, I talked about headsets and pointed out that we are more concerned about microphones than headsets. Employment and Social Development Canada gave us some recommendations and rules to follow to ensure that microphones are ISO-quality.
Based on the lists available to you, we know that these are good quality microphones. They can also be sent practically anywhere in the world. Sometimes we don’t receive confirmation, but now we can perform tests 48 hours in advance. We do a test with a new witness to be sure that microphone quality is good. That doesn’t mean that incidents never happen. In some places around the world, sound quality can also be affected by conflict zones, bandwidth and undervoltage.
Mr. Ball: I would simply add that the issues are the same in both chambers. The number of incidents varies from year to year and according to the many circumstances that Mr. Lymburner just outlined for you. I would say that the issues are the same —bandwidth, microphones and the witness’s acoustic environment. I prefer to avoid making comparisons because the issues are the same. When parliamentarians speak and work in Parliament, the work is definitely easier when we can provide interpreters with good sound quality. In theory, it also reduces the number of incidents.
However, there have still been some incidents in person. The situation is still quite complex.
Senator Clement: We were talking about succession planning, given that two universities offer programs and recruit internationally. Do you recognize the international qualifications of people who trained elsewhere but who might be interested in working in Canada? Is that an issue that you consider?
Mr. Lymburner: That’s a very good question. There may be two parts to the answer. I just got back from spending March break with the children. I think that when we know for sure that we have a few vacation days, we aren’t working with our computers or tools outside the country. As for the possibility of working remotely, there may be some international interest, but people might want to remain outside of Canada. This is an issue for us because we need to have our interpreters with us. In that case, we need applicants interested in moving to Canada, and that can cause longer delays.
As for certification levels — and Mr. Ball has worked on internationally recognized exams in the past — Canadian interpreters must meet certain standards. We’re working on standards to allow people at more junior levels to come onboard and develop their skills, so that we can attract a few more of them. I would rather let Mr. Ball talk to you about the examination and certification level.
Mr. Ball: If I may answer Senator Clement’s question, yes, we have a number of graduates from foreign universities on staff. Therefore, yes, we hire interpreters who studied abroad.
Senator Clement: The number will keep growing. Is that right?
Mr. Ball: The Translation Bureau is looking to hire qualified interpreters, regardless of where they come from, and we always work with that in mind.
Senator Clement: I would like to close by promising the interpreters that I will publish a post on social media to discuss this vital profession, because we need to talk about it a little more publicly. I say this in front of Emma Meldrum, a communications expert from my office.
The Chair: Thank you, senator. You created a nice segue for me to take my turn to say how essential interpretation and translation services are. I would like to read you an excerpt from our committee’s June 2023 report. We noted the following:
Through its translation, interpretation and terminology activities, your committee notes the indispensable role played by the Translation Bureau in the vitality of Canada’s English and French linguistic communities and in the protection and promotion of our two official languages. Your committee encourages the federal government to strengthen the role of translation and interpretation functions within the federal administrative apparatus, notably the Translation Bureau.
We should have written that the committee “obliges” — In fact, I think that many of us would agree that the Translation Bureau plays an absolutely vital role. I read the chronology of all incidents since 2016 and, despite some improvements, the outcome in terms of the federal government’s actual commitment to the Translation Bureau and interpretation service is quite depressing, in my opinion. That said, my question is this.
First of all, is there any coordination between the Translation Bureau, the Senate Administration, the House of Commons Administration and the Library of Parliament to effectively and appropriately address translation and interpretation issues?
I’d like to hear your thoughts on that matter to clearly understand how that cooperation works.
Ms. Fortin: Yes, cooperation with respect to translation has two components. The three organizations coordinate weekly to identify translation needs for the coming week. That helps everyone get a better idea. For example, if people know that the House of Commons is going to receive a very large volume of work, it can be easier to understand why lower-priority documents may be somewhat delayed.
As for the interpretation component, almost a year ago, we created a governance committee composed of House of Commons and Senate representatives — because the Library of Parliament does not use interpretation services directly — precisely to try to work together on reducing the number of incidents, obviously, but also to develop joint strategic planning. We try to work together not only to solve problems, but also to see them coming and avoid them.
Mr. Lymburner: It’s really a committee that works on operational matters, and so it’s impressive to see everyone able to sit down at the same table. There are lots of meetings, extended meetings and days that get cancelled. We are constantly scheduling work. It’s very reassuring to have everyone working at the same table. As mentioned earlier, there’s also a more strategically-oriented table where we discuss certain issues in order to curtail incidents. I can understand that you would draw attention to the matter when you see the figures.
The question was asked earlier as well. In 2022, there was one incident for every 500 hours of committee meetings, and in 2023, there was one incident for every 1,200 hours. On a prorated basis, volumes for both chambers were the same. The Senate volume was slightly less, but the trend and percentages were roughly the same. We really see an improvement, which only confirms the importance of stronger messaging. I noticed the same thing for all the tables; maybe we should even start setting aside technology and talk to people again. Sometimes I see them on television, wearing their earpiece. They talk and the earpiece moves around a lot.
The Chair: We understand that there are technical, human resource and equipment issues. My direct question is this: do you have the funding and resources you need to deliver the services that you’re required to deliver to parliamentarians and Canadians?
I am still amazed that some departments aren’t using the Translation Bureau’s services. Either I’m misinformed or I don’t properly understand how things work, but I don’t understand why, in Canada, a country with two official languages and indigenous languages, we have such a specialized service yet the federal government and departments are not systematically calling on you. Is it a quality issue, a shortage of resources, a lack of political will or vision? I’d like to hear your thoughts on that.
Mr. Lymburner: That’s a very good question. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
As I mentioned in my speech, some technical and technological resources may be unrelated to the Translation Bureau, but they have a huge impact on the quality of our services. We are working with all partners, including the Treasury Board, the Treasury Board Secretariat and others, to ensure that all the platforms can assist us in our work.
No one is sticking their head in the sand either: Artificial intelligence is on our doorstep. It’s having a major impact on all Canadians, but the trade-off mentioned less often is that AI is also generating a lot more content. Yes, we are funded—
I looked back over the past 10 years. Documents are being produced in huge numbers. Artificial intelligence is helping us translate a little faster, but it’s also helping you generate more content. We’re always playing catch-up behind that. Our budget funding requests are tailored to account for the growth in volume related to parliamentarians. You’ve no doubt heard all the motions tabled. These motions are huge. There are videos, texts and social media. The volume is very large. You’ve certainly read the attention-grabbing newspaper articles reporting how much all that will cost, but looking at the number of pages being generated, it becomes obvious that the only tool we have are deadlines. Of course, our budget doesn’t always allow us to meet extremely short deadlines. Some of our clients may want to find a faster way of doing things.
Ms. Anwar: In terms of resources, one problem is volume, but another is the fast pace of requests. Deadlines are shorter. For committee meetings, the issue is not necessarily a matter of capacity over a Monday to Friday week. The problem is that all the committees want to sit from Tuesday morning to Thursday noon, and five or six meetings at once is impossible. We have the resources — interpretation services are available to us on Mondays and Fridays — but very few meetings are held on those two days. Sometimes that’s also the problem: We have the resources from Monday to Friday, but not necessarily enough to handle the volume and hold meetings at the same time as Senate sittings during peak periods.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator Moncion: On that last point, I’d like to talk about operational efficiency. I know that the work also being done with the Internal Economy Committee has led to reflection on the need for continually written production. For example, for a committee like this one, a transcript of everything said is usually ready by the next day. The efficiency and the demand associated with transcription raise the following question: Is it absolutely necessary? We’ve already started making changes. Have you received any feedback on that?
Ms. Anwar: A little, and that’s going to force us to change. It’s also a matter of managing the senators’ expectations, because we can always find ways to get things done, but maybe not overnight. That is going to take a little more time. For example, for in camera meetings without transcription, we now have audio recordings. However, people have grown accustomed to working with a written transcript. They have to adjust to a new way of working. That could take a little longer. We are just beginning the process, and so it’s hard to say that we’ve had any specific feedback yet.
Senator Moncion: Could you tell me about the other interpretation pilot? You said that the project was nearing completion.
Ms. Anwar: It’s something that we tried a few times before with our Translation Bureau and House of Commons colleagues. I think that for now — I’m not sure — a few technical alterations to the rooms themselves are needed to accommodate this kind of translation. As well, I think that the pool of interpreters available to work remotely is a lot smaller. We have the capacity to handle two meetings a day, in both chambers.
The Senate and the House can’t hold two meetings at once. I think that the House uses this service a lot more than we do, mainly because we didn’t really have a capacity problem with parliamentary activities until just last year. Where interpretation services seem to have dropped off from their pre-pandemic levels is in the area of non-parliamentary activities associated with meetings organized by senators. We haven’t really had any capacity problems related to committee or caucus meetings, or Senate sittings, and so we never really needed to use that service. However, tests done with caucuses that volunteered to use it went well. We need to do sound checks. If senators are participating remotely, they have to use their own equipment. Since we work in person, senators are not using their own computers and headsets as often. Everyone is present and therefore using on-site services.
Senator Moncion: Still, it’s one among the range of alternatives available in an emergency, as needed, or in the event of some breakdown or other. It’s one of the many solutions that you’ve been looking into over the past two years to improve service and quality.
Ms. Anwar: Absolutely, on the client side of things, I think it’s unnoticeable. Obviously, the booths will be black for remote interpretation services, but it’s the same thing — you wear an earpiece and you hear the interpretation in your ear, just like now.
Senator Moncion: I’m privileged to never need interpretation.
The Chair: I’m privileged to need it and I feel tremendously privileged to have access to quality services like the ones we receive here. I won’t applaud, to avoid causing microphone problems, but I think everyone can applaud the interpreters here this evening and all those who assist us. Thank you very much for coming to meet with us. It helps create a better understanding, first of all, of the challenges, and also, of the good things that you accomplish.
I hope that the Translation Bureau and all the services that you provide to us will keep up with the latest advances and maintain the same high standards you are known for, which serve not only parliamentarians, but all Canadians. Thank you very much. We will suspend the meeting until we receive our next witnesses. Thank you. Goodbye.
[English]
Colleagues, for our third panel, we are returning to our study on minority language health services. We are pleased to welcome in person, the Honourable John Main, Minister of Health for the Government of Nunavut. Welcome, and the Honourable John Streicker, MLA, Minister responsible for the French Language Services Directorate, Government of Yukon. Welcome. As well, Jo-Anne Cecchetto, Deputy Minister, Department of Health and Social Services, Government of the Northwest Territories.
Good evening. Thank you all for being with us. We will now hear your opening remarks. We will start with Minister Main. The floor is yours.
Honourable John Main, MLA, Minister of Health, Government of Nunavut: Good evening. I want to thank the Senate Standing Committee on Official Languages for the opportunity to speak today. Canada’s relationship to multilingualism goes back to the birth of the country, and these proposed amendments to the Official Languages Act highlight how this relationship is always evolving.
My department is responsible for providing essential health care services to Nunavut residents across our 25 fly-in, fly-out communities in a vast territory making up one fifth of Canada’s land mass. I would like to take this time to discuss Nunavut’s efforts to preserve Inuit language, that being Inuktitut, and provide culturally safe health services.
Like many aspects of our health care system, our approach to language is unique and is tailored to the needs of Inuit residents. Many Nunavut residents are unilingual or prefer speaking in Inuktitut, and our government encourages residents to use their first language when they access health care.
To facilitate this, we employ clerk interpreters within our health facilities in all 25 Nunavut communities. We have also introduced a phone-based interpreter service that is accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And when Nunavut residents leave the territory on medical travel for access to specialized health care, they are accompanied by an escort who can assist with language needs and interpretation.
Our goal with these programs is to ensure we can overcome all language gaps between patient and care provider. We want to ensure a consistent level of care regardless of any differences in languages spoken between these two parties.
By far our biggest challenge around supporting the use of Inuktitut in health care is staffing. Homegrown Nunavut health professionals who speak Inuktitut are a component of our teams, but at this point, they are a minority piece of this critical workforce. With regard to our clerk interpreter positions, it is also difficult to find people able and available to do this specialized interpreting work. In response, our government has been working with Nunavut Arctic College — that’s our territory’s college — to strengthen the territory’s health-related training programs. Nunavut Arctic College offers a two-year Inuktitut interpreter program, which includes modules focused on the language of anatomy, disease and mental health. The Department of Health and the college allow staff members to take these health-specific courses as part of their employment, and we are exploring options to make these courses available virtually. By making this training more accessible, we hope to show people the beauty of Inuktitut as a language and increase our capacity to serve residents.
In Nunavut’s Official Languages Act, Inuktitut, Inuinnaqtun, French and English are recognized as the official languages of Nunavut. This legislation is a vital part of our strategy to promote Inuktitut, Inuinnaqtun and French in the territory. I see many similarities between Nunavut’s approach to protecting minority languages and the objectives of this study. Preserving languages that are under threat requires legal tools that hold the government accountable and allow that same government to make effective change. As such, we believe that giving more powers to the federal Commissioner of Official Languages is a step in the right direction. Granting minority language speakers the right to obtain service in their first language is another amendment that aligns with Nunavut’s approach. As well, promoting bilingualism among public service leadership will promote a cultural shift that ideally helps Canadians feel safer in asking for service in their first language.
I applaud the Government of Canada’s efforts to strengthen language diversity in our country. I know first-hand how difficult — and how important — it is to support languages like Inuktitut to be in continual use. In the context of health care, language has immediate effects: if I cannot communicate with my health care provider, I will not receive equitable care compared to those who can. This inequity means the governments must intervene in taking steps to prevent these language gaps from impacting access to services. We believe these interventions should take place as part of a broader strategy to promote language diversity.
I really appreciate this opportunity to speak today, and I am looking forward to participating in the discussions with committee members.
[Indigenous language spoken], thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, Minister.
Minister Streicker, it is now your turn to make your opening remarks. The floor is yours.
[Translation]
Hon. John Streicker, MLA, Minister responsible for the French Language Services Directorate, Government of Yukon: I am pleased to be here with you today for this important discussion of minority-language health care services.
My name is John Streicker and I’m Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources, Minister of Tourism and Culture, Minister responsible for the Yukon Energy Corporation and Minister responsible for the French Language Services Directorate of the Government of Yukon.
My colleague, Tracy McPhee, Minister of Health and Social Affairs, asked me to represent her here today.
First of all, I’d like to acknowledge that I work on the ancestral lands of the Kwanlin Dün First Nation and the Ta’an Kwäch’än Council.
Honourable senators, many of the issues covered in today’s discussion effectively illustrate the reality facing the Yukon’s francophone community and the challenges we face in providing services in French.
We consulted the francophone community for guidance on developing the new strategic framework on French-language services, published in November 2023.
This framework will guide our work in better meeting the changing needs of the Yukon’s growing francophone community between 2023 and 2025. It hinges on four priorities — technology, public safety, bilingual staff recruitment and support, and promotion of a vibrant francophone community.
A lot of promising work is already under way. We also celebrated the first anniversary of the Constellation Health Centre last November. The centre is a remarkable achievement, arising from our commitment to improve access to government services in French and English.
It offers many primary health and wellness services in French and English, including outpatient care, referrals to specialists, diagnostic tests, pharmaceuticals, virtual visits, routine reviews, chronic disease management, health education, social work consultations and timely access to mental health counselling.
The Yukon public service has 73 positions designated bilingual, compared to 58 last spring, not including positions within the French Services Directorate. This increase is most striking within the Department of Health and Social Affairs, which now has 32 positions that are designated bilingual. When no bilingual employees are available on site, we use interpretation services to help staff members communicate with clients and patients and provide them with the best possible service.
We have a dozen or so video interpretation tools integrated into the health care system, including every hospital in the Yukon. Staff can also communicate with a professional interpreter by telephone in a matter of seconds, 24/7. The emergency medical services team, which provides a wide range of pre-hospital care, can also access video interpretation services inside ambulances.
We could not have accomplished this much in recent years without our collaboration with the Government of Canada. Thank you very much.
I am delighted that the new Official Languages Act recognizes the importance of cooperation between our governments and the diversity of the provincial and territorial language regimes. Although the language regimes of Canada and Yukon are different, all of us hope that our investments are promoting a vibrant Francophone community in the Yukon.
A collaborative approach between the federal and territorial departments could increase our chances of success. It’s vital that our agreements be based not only on the Official Languages Act, but also on the Yukon’s Languages Act and the directions set by our government for French-language service delivery and communications.
I’m delighted by the prospect of continuing to work with our federal partners, stakeholders and the entire Yukon population to contribute to the growth of the Yukon’s francophone community for generations to come. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, minister, for your presentation.
[English]
Finally, we will hear Deputy Minister Cecchetto’s opening remarks. The floor is yours.
Jo-Anne Cecchetto, Deputy Minister, Department of Health and Social Services, Government of the Northwest Territories: Hello. I would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to contribute to your study of minority languages in health services. I am calling from Yellowknife, the capital of the Northwest Territories and the traditional home of the Yellowknife’s Dene First Nation and the North Slave Métis.
I will start by setting the stage for our territory and how we’re structured from a health and social services perspective. We are an integrated health and social services system, with one department or ministries and three health and social services authorities. There are approximately 44,000 residents living in 33 communities spread across over 1 million square kilometres. Indigenous people make up approximately 50% of the total Northwest Territories population and this includes Dene, Inuvialuit and our Métis peoples.
The NWT Official Languages Act is the legislative basis for the recognition of the Northwest Territory’s 11 official languages, which includes English, French and nine Indigenous languages. The act commits the Government of the Northwest Territories, or GNWT, to provide territorial services in all our official languages, which presents some unique challenges for speakers of the 10 minority languages to access services in real time.
I would like to share with you some of the valuable steps that our health and social services system has taken to provide services and public information in accordance with the NWT Official Languages Act. Our health and social services system has 9.5 bilingual French positions located in communities where there is significant French language demand, which include Yellowknife, Hay River, Inuvik and Fort Smith. Of these, we have five French-language service coordinators who are available to provide information, system navigation services and to facilitate appointment bookings or to provide language facilitation or interpretation services during appointments.
In addition to our bilingual French positions, we have 33 employees of the health and social services system who receive a bilingual bonus for French-language services. Additionally, 37 are receiving a bilingual bonus for Indigenous languages. These employees have the ability to speak an official language in addition to English and may occasionally provide services in another official language to the public.
Our system has recently implemented a data-centralization tool to track the number of bilingual employees in our system with the aim to facilitate appropriate service and workforce planning. We offer regular training to ensure staff are aware of their responsibilities to provide an active offer and French services to clients. We have partnered with Le Collège Nordique to deliver French competency and maintenance courses to staff throughout the system, including medical terminology.
Our system utilizes an electronic technical translation or interpretation service called CanTalk, which specializes in immediate languages available. Currently, those are Chipewyan, Cree, Dogrib, Inuinnaqtun, Inuktitut, North Slavey, South Slavey and French, as well as 200 other languages, including African, Asian, Middle Eastern and European languages, which are also spoken throughout our territory.
Located at Stanton Territorial Hospital, we the Indigenous Wellness Program that is designed to enhance the patient experience for Indigenous residents by improving communication and collaboration with health care providers. In addition, there are also four senior Indigenous patient advocates who can help clients navigate the system and links to cultural support, including language services. We have interpretation services available in our territorial hospital for seven official languages.
As Deputy Minister for the Department of Health and Social Services and as a practising nurse practitioner, I recognize the challenges faced by our linguistic minorities and understand the importance of languages in providing quality of care. Improving our provision of languages can inevitably improve the care received by our patients.
As I am sure we can agree, when patients are interacting with the health care system, they are at their most vulnerable. Their vulnerability is intensified for our French- and Indigenous-speaking patients as they can often find barriers to accessing health care in their own official language. I recognize that despite the many initiatives implemented to improve access to health services in a minority language, access to services in a chosen language remains a barrier for many of our patients.
In no small part, the national health care human resource shortage plays a significant role in the health system’s ability to attract and retain bilingual health service providers. As a system, we continue to work and build our partnerships with community organizations to come up with innovative ways to reduce these barriers within our current system’s capacity.
I hope that provides you with a picture of the services we have in place. I look forward to the discussion today.
Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much. I will now open the floor to questions.
[Translation]
Senator Mégie: Thank you for joining us. I listened to you all and realized that you have a major challenge — all of you are launching a lot of health care initiatives for your communities. However, I have a question: During your communications, do you use one language or another — English, French, or an indigenous language? How could or how does the 911 line work? In emergencies, the first language you speak is critically important. How does that work? Have you received any public feedback on that?
All three of you can take turns answering. I would like to hear from you, from each of you, on how the 911 service operates.
[English]
Mr. Main: That’s a really good question.
In terms of the availability of emergency health services, as I mentioned in my opening comments, we have 25 communities across Nunavut. The availability of things you might take for granted in parts of Southern Canada, like an ambulance — we don’t have ambulance services available in every community. They would be limited to the larger communities in Nunavut; two or three, I believe, have what would be understood to be an ambulance service. However, they all have after-hours phone numbers you can call to reach a health professional.
When there are language barriers in terms of those phone conversations, we rely heavily upon family members to interpret, which we recognize is not ideal. Wherever possible, we do staff our after-hours phone coverage with bilingual staff. Bilingual in a Nunavut context means speaking English and Inuktitut where available.
In a nutshell, that’s how we deal with it. We recognize that it is a gap. There are language barriers. The clerk interpreter positions that I referred to in my opening comments, they normally work normal business hours, but we have the ability to call them into our health facilities to interpret on demand after hours to help bridge those gaps in emergency situations.
Mr. Streicker: I would have to check to ensure whether or not we have 911 services in French. I certainly know that we have had a focus over the past couple of years, due to emergencies in the Yukon, particularly around fire and flood, to increase our responsiveness in French to communicate more broadly. I know that in the Yukon, there are various tiers of 911. You should probably check with us, too, because 911 exists in each of the territories but not in all locations. There are going to be some parts of the Yukon where you don’t have cell coverage, for example, and so you don’t have 911.
The new one that is coming is called next generation 9-1-1, or NG9-1-1, which will allow for text. So suddenly we will have more ability to have more connectivity around 911, for example, for our deaf community.
I’d have to check to ensure, Senator Mégie, whether we have bilingual staff on for 911. It may be at the level of taking a call to figure out whether it’s an ambulance, fire or police, and we can understand where people are, but if you start getting into details, maybe it’s not as easily done. But we certainly have bilingual responders. We’re always trying to connect people with the language that they need.
We definitely don’t have 911 in Indigenous languages here. That is a more specialized service that we’ll have in some areas, but not down to the 911 level.
Ms. Cecchetto: I would echo some of the comments that my colleagues on the east and west of me have noted.
In the Northwest Territories, we have, in our smallest communities where we do not have physicians, for example, what we call our community health centres. We have a similar process where people can call directly to that health centre. To be able to offer 11 official languages on a call, as you would imagine, does not exist in our territory.
What I can say to you is that we do have 911, and it’s throughout our entire territory. Our 911 service is actually operated through a different department in our government — Municipal and Community Affairs. The operators are required to be bilingual in English and French, and there is a mechanism for, say, a unilingual resident who only speaks French to call 911, and they will be connected to the after-hours, on-call service in 28 of our 33 communities. As an example, in a small community where there’s a nurse on call, they can connect and provide that translation service for that individual as well.
We do have two different points of entry for emergencies is the point I’m getting at, but specifically through 911, the individuals receiving those calls are bilingual.
[Translation]
Senator Mégie: Thank you.
[English]
Senator Poirier: Thank you all for being here. I have a couple of questions for all three of you.
What mechanism do you use, currently, to allocate the federal health transfer to the francophone minorities in your provinces or territories, and how are these funds allocated to ensure that the francophone minorities have access to health care services in their language?
Mr. Main: Thank you for the question. In terms of providing services in the French language in Nunavut’s context, it’s determined by the existence of significant demand. Currently, that significant demand only exists in one community and that is in Iqaluit, which is also the largest community. In Iqaluit, we do have translator positions stationed at our hospital. We are also working on expanding this to include a patient relations type of function in the French language. That’s the key driver for us in terms of the provision of those services in French.
We do have the ability through the CanTalk service, similar to our neighbours in the Northwest Territories, to provide on-demand interpretation via telephone when required. It is available territory-wide through that service, but right now, the significant demand is limited to one community. Everywhere else across Nunavut, the key challenge is how we can provide more service in Inuktitut, which is something that we are committed to doing.
Mat’na, thank you.
[Translation]
Mr. Streicker: Thank you for the question.
[English]
There are a few ways that I’ll answer this, but I also want to say that it’s not defined exactly.
First of all, with respect to how we see priorities around health care, in particular for our francophone community, we’ve had several ways in which we reach out to them. Our francophone community has a not-for-profit group or body which looks at health care specifically and how we can support their needs in the territory.
I talked about a bilingual health centre. It was a direct request from the francophone community that we form a walk-in clinic. It was also through our Aging in Place initiative as a government.
My department, Direction des services en français, we’re always reaching out to the francophone community to see what those needs are. It’s one of the ways I would request as much flexibility as possible. Funding is coming from Canada, which we appreciate so much, but we need ways in which to coordinate across our health and social services department with our francophone community to identify how to strategically invest those dollars as well as possible. That includes some dollars that we have right now to do some research into this very topic, and I want to tie this answer back to the previous question.
We started a system using an iPad with interpretation which could be in French but could also be in other languages. As Ms. Cecchetto noted, the North has become more diverse in terms of who is living here. It used to be less so, but it’s now much more diverse.
What we found is that even with the French language, when we took that device and provided the translation, say, in a hospital, and where the person was face to face, suddenly we had our own health care providers who had some French but were nervous to declare their French, or even to use it, because they are so concerned that they want to get health care right for patients. But with that device there assisting them, they felt much more comfortable coming forward with their language. So it wasn’t just that we got that face to face through the iPad, we also got more from our health care providers. It was very revealing to us.
I think that how dollars are allocated or where priorities are set is not crystallized for us as we have the new Official Languages Act, but we would like as much flexibility as possible to work with you.
Ms. Cecchetto: Thank you for the question. In the Northwest Territories, as I mentioned, and Minister Main mentioned as well, we use CanTalk. The areas where we have the highest demand are in five of our communities. We have arrangements and a contribution agreement with our three Health and Social Services Authorities, which cover primarily those five communities.
It’s important that I note the relationship that our health and social services system has with two key organizations in our territories. One is Fédération franco-ténoise, and the other is Réseau TNO Santé. These are not-for-profit organizations that meet on a regular basis. In fact, we met with Minister Semmler and their executive staff this past week. We’re always looking to improve the way we communicate with our residents and ensuring, as best we can, that they have the services they need in their preferred language.
One of the things they noted is that we do our visual materials very well, whether it’s posters, social media or on the radio, for example, for auditory perspective. The biggest challenge we have, by far, is the way in which someone can access service, face to face, one-on-one. That’s where our challenge is and that’s the area we need to work on and hence the reason we use CanTalk.
To specifically answer your question around the transfer of funds from the federal government, this funding is used directly with our Health and Social Services Authorities so that we can invest in our front-line staff who are providing those services directly to our clients. That is utilized for training and materials, so that our clients are aware, in the language of their choice, what is available to them and how to access our services in the Northwest Territories.
I hope that was helpful.
Senator Poirier: Other than giving more money, what else do you recommend the federal government could do to help you in the territories, Yukon and Nunavut?
Ms. Cecchetto: I would be remiss not to say that recruitment and retention is a wicked problem. Money can only go so far if you can’t find the resources. We would love nothing more than to have more bilingual staff in the Northwest Territories. I won’t speak on behalf of my colleagues in the other territories, but anything you can do to share the adventures and opportunities that we have in the Northwest Territories, for people to work and be able to speak in their own language in the territories, and anything you can do to help us with word of mouth to promote the Northwest Territories — and all three territories, for that matter — would be really helpful.
Senator Poirier: We have the same problem all across the country, so it’s hard. Everybody is asking for the same thing.
Mr. Streicker: I agree with Ms. Cecchetto that our human resources and labour issues are very challenging. Our premier has agreed with other premiers that we shouldn’t try to poach from other parts of the country. We’ve looked at solutions that are outside of Canada, and how to promote those. If we look far upstream, education is one of those areas where, if we can train people that are from communities — because their relationship with the community is already there. Housing is already there and those sorts of things. But those are long-term solutions.
Over the next two years, we’re doing research on technology and how it can help to leverage health outcomes in French and other languages. That will give us ideas about where we can invest. We’ve identified the opportunity to look at the question more deeply to try to see how to prioritize that funding or any potential funding. More is always lovely. Thank you.
Mr. Main: More money is always helpful, so that’s part of the solution. I had a meeting earlier today with the federal minister specifically around money and the need for more of it.
Beyond the financial aspect, for us in Nunavut, getting more health services provided in Inuktitut will be achieved through training more Inuit into health professions. We’re working hard at it, but in terms of the numbers of health professionals that we need, we’re a long way off from getting to where we want to be.
At our federal-provincial-territorial table, I have raised in the past, the need for a national strategy on training Inuit, First Nations and Métis people into these critical health professions. I say that as a person who is Caucasian. I’m not meaning to speak on behalf of the Inuit in Nunavut. But from the perspective of the health department, we need those Inuktitut-speaking health professionals, and we see that a national strategy could be something that helps advance this right across the country, including in Nunavut. Thank you.
Senator Moncion: On your last comment about having a national strategy, I note that in northern Ontario, at the School of Medicine at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, they have dedicated spots for medical students from Indigenous communities. I know they’re geared to Ontario, but this is one of the strategies they have put in place. The spots cannot be filled by other students; they have to be filled by Indigenous students, which I think is important. For the last 10 years, maybe, they have been filling these positions. It’s just one strategy that is being used by one province.
I want to commend you on the smartness of the solution you have put in place to help your communities. You were talking about fly in, fly out. I think that’s extremely important to be able to serve the remote communities. It’s the same with all three territories. I think you have solutions that are geared to your population. They might not be optimal, but I find them to be ingenious.
The people who use CanTalk and receive medical care, how satisfied are they with being understood and being able to receive the services? I think it’s important, because when you have 11 different languages, like the northern territories, and again, because of the Indigenous communities, how efficient and how satisfied are the patients?
The Chair: I would like to remind our witnesses that time is flying by very fast. We want to give you time to answer, of course, but if you can be concise in your answers, thank you. Minister Streicker, I guess you were ready to speak.
Mr. Streicker: Sure, and I will try to be briefer, Mr. Chair.
The first thing I will say is that we have had some success, especially with our bilingual health clinic. It has been very successful, but we have a long way to go, and when it comes to our Indigenous languages, I’m nervous about their ability to withstand the cultural impact of colonialism. It’s why I work hard to see French as an ally around minority languages, but it’s a very difficult situation for small communities or pockets of language. In the eastern Arctic, I think it’s a different situation because it’s one language. Here it’s quite a few languages, and some of them are in very small pockets.
But we are committed to try and support all those languages. With respect to French, I think the experience is good.
[Translation]
Percentage-wise, its use of French puts the Yukon in third place, after Quebec and New Brunswick.
[English]
So there’s a large francophone community here, and I think it has been improving. I would never suggest that the health care service is as good in French as it is in English, but it is our goal to have our amazing health care system provided equally well in both languages.
It’s moving in the right direction, but it still has a lot of ground to cover.
Ms. Cecchetto: I think specifically for CanTalk — I can only speak as a practitioner myself — when I have had to use CanTalk with a client, it’s because there is no other option available. I’m thankful and believe they are thankful that there is something that is available. I can honestly say that CanTalk always has a French interpreter available, but that’s not necessarily the case with our nine other official languages other than English and French.
So my first-hand experience is that although I haven’t heard or seen complaints, from an evaluation perspective, I’d have to get back to you specifically on that. But overall, I think when there is no other option, we’re thankful that we do have the option of CanTalk because otherwise it would be an extreme barrier for individuals to receive care in any language.
Mr. Main: Similar to our colleagues from the Northwest Territories, generally the CanTalk service works well in terms of scheduled appointments and emergency situations, but there have been some difficulties around interpreters or availability of service in Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun, from time to time. So there can be issues, and my understanding is they’re around availability of interpreters through that service.
Senator Moncion: When you do the fly-in and fly-out service, you have to have an interpreter because the doctors don’t necessarily speak Inuktitut, so they need interpreters.
Mr. Main: Correct, and that’s why in each of our health centres across Nunavut, we have full-time staff whose job is to be interpreters. The health professionals would come and go and travel as required, but our staff stationed in each community are there permanently. Thank you.
Senator Clement: Thank you to all the witnesses. I was in Yellowknife last week, and I think the biggest asset of the North is the people. If you travel up there to be there in person, you feel a lot of love for the North and understand the difference between the North and the South.
I want to just touch on a point raised by Minister Streicker. When we were in Dettah last week, we heard that the extinction of a language is actually a barrier to a return to health. It creates all kinds of mental health issues, and so this is a deep issue. I want to ask Deputy Minister Cecchetto about partnerships. You’ve mentioned Collège Nordique and other partners, and I wonder if you could speak to — and I am going to talk about money here — the funding models. When we met with those partners that you referenced, they talked about chasing project funding. They themselves don’t have sustainable funding. I wonder if you can comment on the fact that you’re relying on partners that are themselves struggling, and what would you suggest to the federal government to help some of those partners who are crucial in providing minority language support and services?
Ms. Cecchetto: Thank you. First of all, I’m glad you came to Yellowknife, and I’m glad you had an opportunity to visit this great city and territory.
I would say that it’s the same answer I think for the sustainability of health care services, or probably any other type of service that you’re trying to deliver in a small remote area. These not-for-profit organizations rely heavily on funding from another entity, and we rely heavily on that funding from another entity, which is Canada. So the biggest answer I have for you is consistent funding and long-term funding. When we met with these two organizations last week, they talked about one initiative that we have for which we provide the funding to them and it’s yearly. We provide the funding to them on a yearly basis because it’s provided to us on a yearly basis, and we would love nothing more than to be able to provide long-term consistent funding, even if that meant three, five, ten years — whatever that may look like — but you can imagine trying to keep an organization — small, big or otherwise — sustained, when you don’t know if you’re going to have funding in the next year, it’s very difficult to plan, and it’s very difficult to create any succession planning even on their end of things.
So my short and long answer is that consistent funding, particularly over multiple years, would be ideal.
Senator Clement: May I ask a question of Minister Main. It’s remarkable, you have four official languages, correct? What can the rest of Canada learn about the coexistence of these official languages and how to deal with any tension that might cause — or do you have any tension around those languages?
Mr. Main: That’s a really good question. As a non-Inuit person — my parents moved up to Nunavut, what was then Northwest Territories, when I was still an infant — I think it’s important for people who are non-Indigenous, such as myself, to understand the benefits of supporting Indigenous languages to be used in the health care setting, and to put yourself in the shoes of a child whose first language was Inuktitut, growing up seeing health professionals speaking another language.
I hope this doesn’t sound awkward, but it’s really important for non-Indigenous Canadians to understand the backlog of need that exists in health care, particularly for Inuit in Nunavut, and to commit ourselves to making things better. In Nunavut’s context, making things better for our health care system means more health professionals, more services and more mental health supports in the language of the people in that particular region. For us, it’s Inuktitut. We have a long way to go in terms of making improvements on that in Nunavut, but we’re fully committed, through education, through training, through services and through innovation that is technology-based to a certain extent, to bridging that gap because we know it’s going to improve health services.
The Chair: Thank you so much. I don’t like to interrupt, but because of the time we have to stop here. Thank you to the three of you for your great contributions to this committee. We certainly learned a lot tonight, and I think it will help us with our study. Thank you so much.
[Translation]
Thank you very much, colleagues, for being here this evening. That brings our meeting to a close.
(The committee adjourned.)