Language commissioner disappointed with Holt on nursing homes

New Brunswick's official languages commissioner says she's disappointed that Premier Susan Holt isn't moving faster to implement recommendations from a three-year-old report on bilingualism.

That report recommended expanding the bilingual obligations of nursing homes across the province.

Holt recently said it might not be possible to do that in her first term, despite a promise in her campaign platform to implement the 2021 recommendations.

"It's disappointing," languages commissioner Shirley MacLean said Tuesday after releasing her annual report.

"It's certainly been our position and continues to be our position … that they do have obligations. Nursing homes do have obligations."

The recommendation was part of a 2021 review of the province's Official Languages Act authored by Judge Yvette Finn and former deputy minister John McLaughlin.

They concluded that the existing law applies to nursing homes because the facilities, while not run by the government, offer a service on behalf of the government and are regulated and funded by the province.

Even so, they urged the Higgs government that was in power at the time to amend the act to explicitly cover nursing homes.

That didn't happen.

The report acknowledged that "rigid new linguistic requirements would place many nursing homes in immediate noncompliance" with the law but said given the rapidly aging population, the government needed "a strategic approach" to move in that direction.

The Holt government's throne speech last November repeated the promise to "implement the recommendations" of Finn-McLaughlin.

'I feel it is not acceptable'

But the premier told Radio-Canada on Jan. 11 that the recommendation on nursing homes may not be doable before the next election in 2028, in part because homes would have a hard time offering equivalent services in both languages.

Nicole Arseneau-Sluyter, the Acadian Society of New Brunswick president, said Holt should press forward because the law requires it.

"Last time I looked, we are in a bilingual province, and I feel it is not acceptable," Arseneau-Sluyter said. 

As a long-time Saint John resident, Arseneau-Sluyter said she has no options in the city for a francophone nursing home when the time comes for her to need one.

"We know that staffing is probably an issue, but this is what we talk about all the time: we need to increase our immigration in New Brunswick, in French. There's a gap. … This will be possible, but we need to have workers."

MacLean said Tuesday putting an explicit requirement in the act would not be difficult, and implementing it would not be a great challenge, given many nursing homes are already putting measures in place.

"I don't think it would be any more complicated than it currently is trying to ensure that there are services available in hospitals," she said.

A spokesperson for Holt said Tuesday that work is underway on the commitment but there are obstacles and it would take time.

MacLean's report also repeated her concerns about the province's virtual consultation platform for primary care, eVisitNB, provided by a private company.

She reported last year that eVisitNB did not provide equal service in both languages because francophone users had to wait longer for care and had to take extra steps to register.

MacLean said she has followed up on her recommendations and is "unsatisfied with the seeming lack of engagement of the Department of Health to rectify the issues."