Canada should work to recruit bilingual health workers, Senate report says

OTTAWA — Many Canadians face barriers to accessing health care in their own language and the federal government should prioritize fast-tracking immigration and credential recognition for bilingual and francophone health-care workers, a new Senate report says.

The Senate committee on official languages recently wrapped up an 18-month study of language barriers in the health system.

It heard from witnesses from across the country — including anglophones in Quebec and francophones in the rest of Canada who said that they have trouble accessing care in their own language.

“There is an acute shortage of health care professionals all across Canada, which has been intensified by the COVID-19 pandemic and the growing influx of newcomers,” the report said, adding that attracting more health professionals to Canada and more training and foreign credential recognition are all needed.

Antoine Désilets, executive director of Société Santé en français, told the committee that two-thirds of francophones outside Quebec reported having only partial access to French-language health services, or none at all, in a 2022 Health Canada consultation.

He said that poses a serious safety risk.

Désilets shared a number of examples of patients experiencing what he called “entirely preventable” harm due to language barriers — including one person in northern Ontario who had the wrong leg amputated as a result of communication mistakes, and a young man in Barrie, Ont., who was involuntarily committed to a mental health centre for two weeks because he didn’t respond well to treatment in English.

The Senate report makes 14 recommendations to the federal government to help improve access to care and collect better data on the problem.

They include creating a national strategy on telemedicine and virtual care in minority communities, and stable long-term funding for community organizations and minority post-secondary institutions.

The report calls for the establishment of best practices such as identifying a patient’s language of choice, providing language training for health workers and hiring professional interpreters.

It notes the federal government will need to collaborate with provinces and territories, among others, to make changes.

Anglophones struggle to access services in Quebec, the report found.

The population of English-speakers in Quebec includes a higher proportion of recent immigrants, and statistics show anglophones in the province are more likely to be unemployed or live below the poverty line than their francophone neighbours.

Witnesses told the committee that in the Outaouais region, where 20 per cent of the population speaks English, many people opt to travel to Ontario for care. Hiring bilingual providers is a challenge in the current political environment in Quebec, said Danielle Lanyi, executive director of the Connexions Resource Centre.

“In our region, each bilingual position that is posted undergoes close scrutiny and justification and often results in grievances by the unions,” she said.

In the Gaspé area, where about 10 per cent of the population is anglophone, there is no bilingual hospital and patients often have to travel as far as Montreal for treatment.

The advocacy group Vision Gaspé-Percé Now described for senators some of the problems it has encountered.

In one case, a patient who did not speak French asked their child to accompany them to an appointment with a doctor who did not speak English.

“The doctor gives a diagnosis of terminal cancer, and as you sit there in tears, your mother is comforting you as she still has no idea what is happening, and you are the one who has to give your mother the news,” Jessica Synnott, the group’s executive director, told the committee.

Nova Scotia Sen. Allister Surette, chair of the Senate committee, said that while health is a provincial responsibility, the federal government has an obligation to step in because of its authority over the Official Languages Act.

“I think everyone realizes that it won’t be the same everywhere. But there can be efforts put into trying to obtain those services right across the country,” Surette said in an interview.

He said technology like translation services and virtual care can help improve access.

The report also acknowledged that “much work remains to be done to increase interprovincial mobility.”

A bilingual doctor in New Brunswick, for example, can’t do virtual care for francophone patients in underserved areas in Saskatchewan if they are not also licensed to work in that province, a process that is expensive and cumbersome.

The Canadian Medical Association and the Canadian Nurses Association have been pushing the provinces and territories to ensure licences for doctors and nurses are recognized across the country.

Many witnesses who spoke to the Senate described the plight of seniors who belong to a linguistic minority and have little or no access to home care or long-term care in their language.

Surette said cognitive issues like dementia can mean that a person who was bilingual loses their language capacity over time.

“When you’re sick, it’s harder to be bilingual,” he said.

The committee noted that health is now enshrined in the updated Official Languages Act as essential to the vitality of minority language communities, and that federal funding has been boosted for programs that support access to health care in official languages.

The federal departments of Health and Heritage said the government is looking closely at the Senate committee’s 14 recommendations and will respond to the senators in the coming months.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 17, 2026.

Sarah Ritchie, The Canadian Press