P.E.I. francophone group has access, consultation at top of mind in campaign

There are some election issues almost all Islanders can agree on, like the health care crisis and the rising cost of living. But each community also has unique challenges and priorities, including P.E.I.'s French-speaking community.

Charles Duguay is interim president of SAF'Île, or the Société Acadienne et Francophone de l'Île-du-Prince-Édouard, a non-partisan group that promotes French language and culture on the Island.

He says politicians should always be thinking about how the issues of the day affect the French-speaking community. 

"It should be in the back of your mind," he said. "If you do that from the onset, then you're going to, I guess minimize the negative consequences in the long, long run."

Duguay says he's pleased with how many candidates in this election can speak French, even if they aren't francophone.

"To me, sometimes they're the best ambassador…," he said. "Sometimes it resonates differently as opposed to a francophone."

But even with that, there are still occasions that the French community feels it hasn't been consulted on decisions that affect it. One is the renovation work being done at École François-Buote in Charlottetown.

"What we would like to see is more communication, open communication with SAF'Île or the francophone community," he said. "Because those schools are not only a regular school, they're also a community centre, and the community is using the school, like, all the time."

'A never-ending job'

Equal language access to provincial services like health care is a priority that the four major parties say they share.

In District 24, Progressive Conservative candidate Gilles Arsenault says he'd like to see an expansion of the availability of French-speaking workers in long-term care, but he thinks the current services are well-received.

"What we need to do is to make sure that we maintain what we have in French-language services," he said. "It's a never-ending job to make sure that we maintain that — and the services that we offer presently, I think, are crucial."

Green party candidate Adine Nault is running in District 9. She says she'd like to see more Acadian representation in the legislature, and wants to improve access to French-language childcare.

"We have [a] wonderful early-years centre, but we can't accept all of our families, unfortunately, because of a lack of space," she said. "And because of this, what happens is that they start creating their relationships in the anglophone community and we lose those children to the anglophone community."

Access a priority

District 14 Liberal candidate Gord McNeilly says he plans to speak more in the legislature about offering services in French if he's re-elected — including bilingual access to health care.

"I will continue to try to represent or speak for the Acadian community, because I love the Acadian community," he said. "I think it's a fantastic community and they have a distinct language that we have to try better to utilize."

The NDP candidate in District 12, Joe Byrne, says many issues for francophone Islanders are the same as for anglophones. He thinks adding more interpreters when government services are provided could help.

"When we need doctors or nurses or radiologists or lab technologists, we look first for the professional qualifications," he said. "If they don't have the language skills, we should go then and look to the community to provide the interpretive skills that are needed so that citizens and residents that are using those services can get the information in the language of their choice."

Whichever party is elected to lead Prince Edward Island, SAF'Île would like more transparency and accountability when it comes to government spending as well. If the government doesn't provide equal services in French, Duguay says it falls on the community to fill in the gaps.