Need of more English services in Laval

INSPQ analyst pleased
“The response has been unbelievable,” Mary Richardson of the Institut national de santé publique du Québec, which partnered with NPI Laval Agape to stage the two consultation meetings held on separate weekends at Laval Liberty and Laurier Senior high schools, said in an interview with the Laval News towards the conclusion of the second session on Nov. 26.

“It’s way beyond what we could have imagined in terms of the number of people who came out and the wealth of all of the discussions,” added Richardson. “It’s honestly way beyond what we even could have hoped for.” An anthropologist, Richardson will be analyzing the responses, before creating a “portrait” summarizing the comments made by around 700 people who took part in focus groups dealing with issues ranging from access to health and social services to education.

Report in the spring
“We’re hoping to have a kind of a preliminary version in the spring some time that we could bring back and summarize to the population,” she said. “As far as a final document it won’t be back quick, because it needs to go through a process of validation with the population, and also revision at the communications department at the INSPQ.”
According to Richardson, the information gathered will be brought back to the community, “so that they can then look at it and discuss where they want to go from here. Are there specific issues that they feel are more important than others? And what are the priorities? And how can the community be involved in creating a positive future? It’s not so much about making demands. It’s about building a community in a healthy way.”

Competing forces
While statistics strongly suggest that the English-speaking population of Laval has grown by 35 per cent in the past decade, providing local Anglophones with a solid argument to request better service in English at the area’s publicly-funded health and social service establishments, an overall decline in the status of French in Montreal during the same time frame is leading Quebec nationalists to demand that the province’s language laws be better enforced, or that new and more stringent legislation be passed to safeguard the French language.
With these two sides possibly competing, Luigi Morabito, who was a key player in helping to launch NPI Laval Agape last year as a network of stake-holding community organizations, said in an interview that both needs can be met. “How do you meet both needs?” he said. “Well, according to statistics, over 49 per cent of Laval residents, whether they’re Francophone or Anglophone, no matter what ethnic background, sought services in 2006 and 2007 in Montreal.

‘A win-win situation’
“Whether you’re French or English, you couldn’t get it here and so you went to Montreal where it was more accessible. So what we’re seeing is that if we can get more health professionals, more doctors, more specialists that speak French, work in French, but that have a second language like English, or even a third or fourth language like Greek or Italian or Spanish or whatever, isn’t that a plus for a growing Anglophone, francophone and allophone and multicultural community? It’s a win-win situation for everybody.”
Harvey Schafer, a Chomedey resident who attended the Nov. 26 consultation at Laurier Senior High School, was hopeful that positive developments would result. “You know, I still say that everything is political, it all comes down to votes, but hopefully something will come from this and future meetings – I certainly hope so,” he said.

Seeking English service
Asked what he hoped would be achieved, he replied, “I hope that the mayor of Laval and our representatives listen to the English concerns about having services in English, and also to put pressure on the provincial government to provide more English services at the medical end of it so we don’t have to go out of Laval.”
Eleanor Houston of Fabreville, who also attended the second session, had similar complaints about the lack of English in the provision of health services in Laval. Houston, an Ontario resident who came to live here when her husband was transferred to Laval for a new job posting, said the local employment market is very difficult for someone who speaks only English, although she found others during the forum who shared her experience.

Bilingual status sought
During both meetings, the view was expressed by several people who took part in the focus groups that the City of Laval should start taking steps to be declared an officially bilingual municipality, given the fairly even English/French population balance which now prevails. Another observation was that there are apparently no English language programs available at Laval’s only CEGEP, Collège Montmorency, or at the new University of Montreal campus.
A complaint was also heard about a lack of English books at the Laval municipal library.