Quebec language watchdog visits Montreal hospital, denies sending inspectors

Workers at a hospital in Montreal's east end say representatives of Quebec's language watchdog checked whether the hospital was communicating in French as per the law.

CBC News has agreed to keep the identities of the employees at Santa Cabrini Hospital confidential because they were not authorized to speak on the matter. 

Since Quebec's updated French language charter, Bill 96, came into effect in June 2023, health and social services organizations have been required to submit an assessment of their "linguistic situation" to the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF). 

"They didn't attack us. They just looked at us in small groups," said one hospital worker about an OQLF visit that happened Tuesday. "They came to the hospital to check if everything was written properly."

Bill 96 permits provincial and municipal government bodies to serve someone in English if they have been declared eligible to go to English-language school in Quebec, if they are First Nations or Inuit, if they immigrated to Quebec in the last six months or if they had an English-only file with that specific government body before May 13, 2021. 

The provincial government has repeatedly said that changes to the French language charter would not impact patients' access to health care in English. 

OQLF spokesperson Chantal Bouchard denied in an email on Wednesday that the office had sent inspectors to Montreal hospitals recently or is planning to send inspectors in the coming days. 

Bouchard noted that it is up to health and social services organizations to schedule when they will receive OQLF employees and that no inspectors are involved. 

The OQLF visits organizations that have yet to receive an attestation of conformity, she said. If an organization chooses to include an operating floor in the itinerary, the visit always follows hospital security measures and takes place in an unoccupied room. 

"Organizations in the health and social services network are supported by francization consultants as part of this process," Bouchard said.

"The office does not remove staff members from pressing medical tasks," Bouchard said, noting that OQLF employees only meet with an organization's administrative staff or managers. "The office never goes into a busy operating room to check what language is spoken there."

Under the law, all organizations may offer health or social services in a language other than French and English-speakers have the right to receive those services in their language, she said. Bouchard stopped short of saying organizations are required to offer health and social services in a language other than French. 

Hospital distributes language checklist

The regional health authority, the CIUSSS de l'Est-de-Montréal, which oversees Santa Cabrini Hospital, has produced "reminder sheets" for managers to ensure teams are complying with the language law, said spokesperson Luc Fortin. 

Those checklists have been created to fulfill other legal requirements, including infection prevention and control and Accreditation Canada norms.

"The OQLF visits our establishments like all public establishments governed by the French language law," Fortin said in an email Wednesday. "We comply with the requests of the OQLF."