Nurses withdraw lawsuit against language commissioner over licensing exam
Nurses group was angry with commissioner's report on failure rate by francophone nurses
The New Brunswick Nurses Association is withdrawing a lawsuit launched last August against the commissioner of official languages after a stinging report on the exam nurses take to get a licence.
The licensing body was challenging the commissioner's findings that it broke the Official Languages Act by adopting an exam that put francophone students at a disadvantage.
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The exam, developed from the American NCLX-RN licensing test, saw University of Moncton nursing students with the highest failure rate in the country.
After the exam was introduced in 2015, the school's success rate dropped to 32 per cent from 91 per cent.
Former languages commissioner Katherine d'Entremont found there was a lack of preparation material, such as practice tests, in French and that the translation was weak, likely because it was done by people who were not qualified translators.
After discussions between the two parties, the nurses association decided to withdraw the lawsuit from Fredericton Court of Queen's Bench this week.
D-Entremont has retired, and the interim commissioner, Michel Carrier, said the office would decline to comment on the reasons why the lawsuit was dropped. The nurses association said it declined comment for the time being.
The association is still being sued by the Acadian Society of New Brunswick and the student federation at the University of Moncton, who took it to court last May over the failure rate.