Quebec may ban medical clinics from providing services in English
The government amended the bill at the last minute.
François Legault's government is preparing sweeping amendments to Quebec's health care legislation. To do this, a bill known as Bill 15 is being drafted and debated. It is truly huge: it consists of more than 1,200 articles that have been debated and amended since March of this year. The government expects to pass it by the end of the working year — that is, next week. And suddenly this week, the authors of the bill introduced a clause that shocked many people.
A new amendment will allow Santé Québec, new oversight agency. to revoke the bilingual status of medical facilities. This means that the provincially controlled department will be able to prohibit virtually any clinic from offering services in a language other than French.
This proposal, made naturally at the last minute, shocked opposition parliamentarians and the public alike.
How things are now — and what will change
About 50 health and social service agencies across Quebec are now legally authorized to offer services in a language other than French — when the number of non-French speakers requires it.
A new bill establishes a new agency to manage the health care system, Santé Québec. It is now proposed to give it the power to withdraw the right to offer such services to institutions in areas where linguistic minority communities have been reduced to less than 50%.
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