Section 2: Analysis of the numbers and proportions of selected health care professionals

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Doctors

In 2006, the population outside Quebec with French as their first official language spoken represented 4.2% of the total population. This was a decrease from the proportion observed in the 2001 Census (4.4%).

Of the 30,595 doctors enumerated outside Quebec in 2006, 1,075 doctors, or 3.5%, had French as their first official language. By comparison, 1,860 doctors, or 6.1%, stated they use French at least regularly at work. Of those 1,860 doctors, 515 use French most often at work, (1.7%), while 1,345 doctors use it regularly (4.4%). 1  The latter number thus includes doctors for whom French is not the first official language spoken. Data on official language knowledge shows that outside Quebec, 6,445 doctors say they can conduct a conversation in French (21.1%). This constitutes a large potential pool of doctors who speak French.

In Quebec, there were 10,540 doctors in 2006, 1,610, or 15.3%, of whom had English as their first official language. The use of English most often at work was reported by 1,535 doctors, or 14.5%. By comparison, a greater number of doctors, 3,860 say they use English on a regular basis at work (36.6%). The number of doctors who stated that they can conduct a conversation in English reached 9,025 doctors in this province (85.5%). It should be noted that 13.4% of the Quebec population have English as their first official language in 2006, an increase from 12.9% in 2001.

Eastern Canada

In the provinces east of New Brunswick, 2.6% of the population have French as their first official language, while 1.1% of doctors do. The number of doctors who stated they use French at least regularly 2  at work represented 4.6% of that professional group, while 19.6% of doctors said they could conduct a conversation in French.

The very small number of doctors observed in Newfoundland and Labrador and, in particular, in Prince Edward Island, makes it difficult to give a reliable estimate of the number and proportion of doctors practicing in those provinces. Considering the sampling error and random rounding these numbers are subject to, it is hard to say exactly how many French-speaking doctors there are, how many use French at work or how many doctors know the language.

In Nova Scotia, 25 of the 1,380 doctors, or 1.8%, spoke French as their first official language in 2006. The number of doctors in that province who said they use French at work at least regularly was almost three times higher, 75 doctors or 5.4%. By comparison, 280 doctors in Nova Scotia (20.3%) said they could conduct a conversation in French.

Western and Northern Canada

The situation observed in the territories and the Western provinces is generally quite similar to that observed in the provinces east of New Brunswick. Thus, because of sampling error and random rounding, the numbers of doctors in the three territories are too small to be able to give reliable information on the subject. The French-speaking population was 1.4% in Nunavut, 2.5% in the Northwest Territories and 3.9% in the Yukon. It should be noted, in the three territories, the French-speaking population was 2,615 people in 2006.

In 2006, about 55 doctors in the territories said they could conduct a conversation in French. 3 

In the Western provinces, the relative proportion of the French-speaking population is between 1.5% in British Columbia and 3.8% in Manitoba. Likewise, the proportion of French-speaking doctors ranges from 1.3% in British Columbia to 2.6% in Manitoba. However, because of the very low numbers of both French-speaking doctors and individuals in those provinces, the discrepancy between the proportion of French-speaking doctors and the minority language population is not significant.

As for the use of French at work, only the results observed in British Columbia are reliable enough to make a comparison to the relative proportion of the French-speaking population in the province. Thus, 145 doctors, or 2.7% in that province said they use French at least regularly at work 4  while 1.3% of the population there is Francophone.

Finally, although fewer than 3.0% of doctors use French at work in the Western provinces, the pool of doctors who can speak that language is much greater. Thus, in 2006, over 1,000 doctors (19.3%) in British Columbia said they could conduct a conversation in French. In Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, those proportions were 15%, 12% and 15% respectively.

New Brunswick

In 2006, 32.7% of New Brunswickers had French as their first official language. By comparison, 38.6% of doctors in that province have French as their first official language. Likewise, 45.8% of doctors use French at work at least regularly. Unlike the other provinces outside Quebec, 280 of New Brunswick's 380 doctors (73.7%) who say they use French at work use it most often. This is particularly the case in the North of the province where 120 doctors, or 72.7%, say they use French most often at work while 9.1% use it regularly. Likewise, in South-East New Brunswick, 52.5% of doctors use the minority language most often at work and 20.3% regularly. By comparison, in 2006, 53.0% of the province's 825 doctors said they can conduct a conversation in French. Overall, the level of knowledge of the minority language among New Brunswick doctors is very high. Only in the Rest of New Brunswick is it lower at 20%, while it is 78% in the South-East and 85% in the North of the province.

Quebec and its regions

Among Quebec's regions, Montréal has the highest proportion of doctors who use English at least regularly at work (69.2%). The minority language is used most often at work by a quarter of doctors while 43.7% of doctors say they use it regularly, in addition to French or another language. In this metropolitan region, the English-speaking population was 22.3% in 2006. By comparison, no 5  doctor in the Eastern Quebec region stated that they used English most often at work. The 140 doctors, or so who use English at work, do so regularly in addition to predominately using French (26.9%).

In the Estrie and Southern Quebec region, where 8.7% of the population has English as their first official language, the use of English most often at work was observed among 2.9% of doctors. However, 55% of doctors in this region indicated that they use the minority language regularly at work. Finally, it is in Western Quebec that the greatest discrepancy between the proportion of doctors who say they use English most often at work (4.4%) and that of the population with English as their first official language (13.3%) is observed. However, 63.7% of doctors use English regularly at work.

In Quebec, the proportion of doctors who know English is the highest in the country. The case of the Québec and surrounding area is noteworthy. In this region, 15.1% of doctors say that they use English at least regularly at work, while 76.3% of doctors have a knowledge of the minority language. A similar situation is observed in Eastern Quebec region where the English-speaking population represents almost 4%, 26.9% of doctors indicate that they use English at least regularly at work and 78.8% say that they can conduct a conversation in this language.

Ontario and its regions

In Ontario, the French-speaking population represented 4.5% in 2006 while 7.0% of doctors said they use French at least regularly in their work. Moreover, the relative share of French-speaking doctors there was 3.5%. Lastly, 23% of the province's 15,225 doctors said that they can conduct a conversation in French.

Among the regions of this province, it is in Ottawa that the greatest discrepancy is observed between the proportion of doctors who say they use French at work and the relative weight of the French-speaking population. This discrepancy is no doubt due to the large number of Outaouais Francophones who receive medical care in Ottawa. Thus, while the French-speaking population represented 16.9% of the Ottawa population in 2006, 36.4% of doctors said they use French at least regularly at work 6  and 42% indicated that they can conduct a conversation in French.

The case of Northeastern Ontario is also noteworthy. Twenty-five percent of its population is French-speaking, while 7% of doctors have French as their first official language. In that region, 30% of doctors say they can conduct a conversation in French. Finally we note that more than 20% of doctors in Toronto say they know French, while 2% of the city's population is French-speaking.

Nurses

Outside Quebec, the 2006 Census found 213,795 nurses, of whom 9,705 had French as their first official language (4.5%). Moreover, 11,935 nurses said that they used this language at least regularly at work (2.3% most often and 3.3% regularly). Thus, some nurses who use French at work do not have this language as their first official language. As for their ability to conduct a conversation in French, 23,130 nurses, or 10.8%, indicated that they know this language.

In 2006, outside Quebec the population with French as their first official language spoken represented 4.2% of the total population. The relative share of nurses belonging to the official-language minority group (4.5%) is thus slightly higher than that of the French-speaking population.

In Quebec, of the 61,320 nurses enumerated in 2006, 5,275 had English as their first official language (8.6%). It should be noted that Anglophones make up 13.4% of Quebec's total population. By comparison, 22,555 nurses, or 36.8%, said that they use English at least regularly at work. A third of those nurses (14,760 people) use English most often at work. That number thus includes nurses whose first official language is not English. The number of nurses who stated that they can conduct a conversation in English reached 27,535, or 44.9%.

Eastern Canada

In Eastern Canada, 345 nurses, or 2.0%, have French as their first official language. 7  In addition, 1,270 nurses said that they know enough French to conduct a conversation in this language (7.5%). There is thus a relatively large proportion of nurses who can potentially speak French compared to the proportion of those who say that they use this language at work (2.6%). The French-speaking population represented 2.6% of Eastern Canada's population in 2006, a slight absolute and proportional decrease since 2001 (2.7%).

In Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island, the number and proportion of nurses whose first official language is French is very small (less than 0.2% and 1.2% of all nurses respectively). However, 70 nurses, or 1.2%, state that they use French at least regularly at work in Newfoundland and Labrador, which is almost three times the share of the province's Francophone population (0.4%). As for the ability to speak French, 230 nurses, or 4.0%, in Newfoundland and Labrador and 130 nurses, or 8.0%, in Prince Edward Island said that they can conduct a conversation in this language.

In Nova Scotia, the proportions of nurses whose first official language is French (3.3%) and of those who use that language at least regularly at work (3.2%) are not significantly different from the share of the population whose first official language is French (3.6%). The proportion of nurses who know the minority language is 9.5%, or 915 nurses.

Western and Northern Canada

Of the 88,515 nurses in the western part of the country, 1,770 nurses, or 2.0%, have French as their first official language. A smaller number, 1,055 nurses, use the minority language at least regularly at work (1.2%). 8  This would indicate that a great majority of nurses who use French at work have this language as their first official language. As for their ability to conduct a conversation in French, 6,105 nurses, or 6.9%, state they know this language. The pool of nurses able to speak French thus greatly exceeds those whose first official language is French.

In the Western provinces, the proportion of the population with French as their first official language ranges from 1.5% in British Columbia to 3.8% in Manitoba. The relative share of nurses is between 1.3% in British Columbia and 4.1% in Manitoba. However, the percentage gap between the share of nurses whose first official language is French and the minority population is not considered significantly different from a statistical point of view.

In the four provinces, the number of nurses who use the minority language at least regularly at work is less than that of nurses with French as their first official language. In Saskatchewan, 70 nurses, or 0.7%, say that they use this language at work, while 150 nurses, or 1.6%, have French as their first official language. In Alberta, the share of nurses who use French at work represents half (1.0%) of those with this language as their first official language (2.1%). The same situation is observed in British Columbia where 460 nurses, or 1.3%, belong to the official-language minority group, while 230 nurses, or 0.7%, say that they use French at least regularly at work. In those four provinces, the gap between the proportion of French-speaking nurses and that of those professionals who use French at work is statistically significant.

The four Western provinces have a relatively large pool of nurses able to speak French. In Manitoba, 1,020 nurses, or 8.5%, say that they know the minority language. In Alberta, that proportion is 7.2% or 2,310 nurses. A similar number (2,340 nurses) can speak French in British Columbia (6.7%). In addition, we counted 435 nurses (4.6%) in Saskatchewan.

Finally, the number of French-speaking nurses is too small in the territories to allow reliable information to be presented. We will simply mention that of the 955 nurses practicing in the territories, those who have French as their first official language constituted about 4% of this professional group in 2006. Moreover, 13% of nurses in the territories said that they can conduct a conversation in French.

New Brunswick

In New Brunswick, 2,765 nurses, or 34.3%, from the official-language minority group were enumerated in 2006. There are 3,570 nurses, or 44.3%, who use French at least regularly at work. Of those, three out of four use this language most often at work. Knowledge of French is still more common. Thus, 3,935 nurses, or 48.8%, state that they can conduct a conversation in French. The gap between the proportion of nurses who can speak French and those who use French at work is thus relatively smaller than that observed in the east and west of the country. It should be remembered that the share of the French-speaking population in New Brunswick is 32.7%.

In the North of the province, 91.6% of nurses use French at work, essentially predominantly. This proportion is much lower in the Rest of New Brunswick (13.3%), 9  but even there it is double the proportion of French-speaking nurses (6.1%).

The level of knowledge of the minority language is very high and exceeds that of its use at work. In the Rest of New Brunswick, it is 20.1%, which is a significantly higher proportion than that of nurses who use French at work (13.3%). In the South-East of the province, 61.5% of nurses say they know French, compared to 91.1% in the North of the province.

Quebec and its regions

Montréal is the region with the greatest share of English-speaking nurses in the province (16.0%). In this metropolitan area, 22.3% of the population has English as their first official language. By comparison, 55.5% of nurses use English at least regularly at work, a gap of almost 39 percentage points compared to the proportion of English-speaking nurses. Of the 30,000 nurses working in Montréal, 6,785 nurses, or 23.7%, state that they use English most often at work, while 9,130 nurses, or 31.8%, use it regularly in addition to French.

The share of English-speaking nurses is significantly lower from a statistical point of view than that of the English-speaking population in all regions of Quebec. However, in the Estrie and South of Quebec region as well as in the West of the province, the proportion of nurses who use English at least regularly at work is more than 34 percentage points higher than the proportion of the English-speaking population.

As for knowledge of English, 60% of nurses speak it in the Montréal region, 47% in the Estrie and South region and 52% in the West of Quebec. In all regions, the proportion of nurses who stated that they know English is higher than that of those who use this language at work. Sometimes however this gap is very small. In the West of Quebec, for example, 51.3% of nurses say that they use English at work while 51.9% indicate that they have knowledge of that language.

Ontario and its regions

Of the 99,275 nurses in Ontario, 4,785 of them, or 4.8%, have French as their first official language. The rate of use of the minority language at work is higher (6.9%), which means that at least 2,000 nurses who use French at work do not have this language as their first official language spoken. Almost 12% of these health care professionals are able to conduct a conversation in French. It should be noted that the French-speaking population represented 4.5% of Ontario's total population in 2006.

Most nurses in Southern Ontario (55.9%) say that they use French at least regularly at work. The rate of use of the minority language at work is 40.6% in Ottawa and 31.1% in Northeastern Ontario. 10  The share of nurses who use French at work in those three regions is higher than that of French-speaking nurses. This difference is greatest in Southeastern Ontario, over 20 percentage points.

In Toronto and the Rest of Ontario, the number and proportion of nurses who use the minority language at work is quite similar to the number and proportion of French-speaking nurses. However, that proportion (1.3% in Toronto and 1.4% in the Rest of the province) is lower than the relative share of the French-speaking population (1.9%). In those two regions, a larger proportion of nurses (7.0% in Toronto and 6.4% in the Rest of the province) report that they can conduct a conversation in French, which gives a pool of potential French speakers of about 1,770 and 3,800 nurses respectively.

Psychologists and social workers

Given the relatively small number of psychologists compared to the number of doctors and nurses, we have grouped them with social workers. Those two groups of professionals distinguish themselves from other groups specifically in that their practice is based essentially on verbal interactions with their clientele. Because of the importance of language as an intervention tool, it is important to look into their language practices at work and their knowledge of the minority language.

Outside Quebec, 2,755 psychologists and social workers have French as their first official language. However, French is used at least regularly at work (6.9%) by a proportion higher than the percentage of psychologists and social workers who have French as their first official language (5.6%). This means that a certain number of psychologists and social workers use French at work although it is not their first official language. Knowledge of French by psychologists and social workers outside Quebec is even greater with 16.0% of this professional group declaring that they can conduct a conversation in French. In those three situations, that of being a member of the official-language minority, that of using the minority language at work, and that of having knowledge of the language, the proportion of psychologists and social workers is higher than the proportion of the French-speaking population, which was 4.2% according to the 2006 Census.

Eastern Canada

For all of the provinces east of New Brunswick, almost 40,000 individuals have French as their first official language (2.6%). A similar proportion (2.7%) of psychologists and social workers state that they use French at least regularly at work while 12.4% of them said that they can conduct a conversation in this language.

However, it should be noted that the estimate of the use of French at work in Prince Edward Island by these health care professionals is based on too small a sample to be accurate. The same is true for the number of these professionals in Newfoundland and Labrador who have French as their first official language. Knowledge of the French language seems to be more widespread since 75 psychologists and social workers in Newfoundland and Labrador, or 6.7%, said they can conduct a conversation in French. It should be noted that Newfoundland's minority language population represented 0.4% of that province's total population in 2006. In Prince Edward Island, the proportion was 3.8%.

In Nova Scotia, the proportion of psychologists and social workers who claim to know French (15.0%) is almost four times higher than the proportion of professionals who say that they use the minority language at work (4.4%).

Western and Northern Canada

In Western Canada, there are 290 psychologists and social workers who use French at least regularly at work (1.6%). Moreover, six times more of these professionals say that they can conduct a conversation in the minority language (9.0%).

It is in Manitoba that the use of French at least regularly at work is most common among psychologists and social workers (2.9%), followed by British Columbia (1.6%) and Alberta (1.2%). In the four Western provinces, the proportion of these professionals who have a knowledge of French is higher than its use at work. In British Columbia, 10.7% of all psychologists and social workers indicate that they can conduct a conversation in the minority language. This is almost the same proportion as the one observed in Manitoba (10.1%). In Alberta and Saskatchewan, this proportion is slightly smaller, at 7.7% in Alberta and 6.2% in Saskatchewan. In the four provinces combined, the potential pool of individuals who know French among this group of professionals is thus quite large compared to the number of those who use the language in their practice.

In the territories, as was the case with nurses and doctors, the number of psychologists and social workers who use French at work is too small to make accurate estimates. Of the 295 psychologists and social workers who work in the territories, only a very small number (less than 20 or 5%) have French as their first official language. Knowledge of the minority language was declared by 55 of these professionals (18.6%).

New Brunswick

More than half of all psychologists and social workers (56.5%) use French at least regularly at work in New Brunswick. This proportion is quite similar to the proportion of health care professionals who have French as their first official language (51.5%). Moreover, 975 psychologists and social workers said that they can conduct a conversation in the minority language (60.2%).

The use of French at work is more or less generalized in the North of New Brunswick. Thus, 410 of 425 psychologists and social workers (96.5%) use French at work in this region. This proportion is identical to the proportion of French-speaking psychologists and social workers. All psychologists and social workers say that they use French most often at work. In the Southeastern New Brunswick, 89.9% of these health care professionals use French at least regularly at work (of which 57% use it most often), while in the Rest of the province this proportion is 19.4% (of which 4.4% use it most often).

In the North of New Brunswick, 77.4% of the total population has French as its first official language while this proportion is 48.7% in the Southeast and 7.5% in the Rest of New Brunswick.

Quebec and its regions

Of the 18,230 psychologists and social workers practicing in Quebec, 5,365 psychologists and social workers, or 29.4%, say that they use English at least regularly at work. This proportion is higher than the percentage of Anglophones or English speakers (13.4%). However, more than half of all psychologists and social workers (55.5%) say that they know enough English to conduct a conversation in this language. In all regions of Quebec, the proportion of psychologists and social workers who use English at least regularly at work is higher than the proportion of the English-speaking population. The difference can be as high as 24 percentage points (Western Quebec).

There are 4,105 psychologists and social workers in the Montréal Census Metropolitan Area who use English at work. Almost 45% of these professionals say that they use English most often. The proportion of psychologists and social workers who use English most often at work (18.9%) is not statistically different from the figures for English-speaking professionals (17.4%) or the one of the English-speaking population (22.3%). As for the rate of knowledge of English within this professional group, it was 68.0% in 2006.

In Western Quebec, 37.2% of psychologists and social workers say that they use English at least regularly at work. In this region, 59.2% of psychologists and social workers have a knowledge of English.

Finally, in the Estrie and South of Quebec region, the English-speaking population represented 8.7% of the total population in 2006. In this region, 23.0% of psychologists and social workers use the minority language at least regularly at work and 53.1% say that they can conduct a conversation in it.

Ontario and its regions

Of the 25,360 psychologists and social workers in Ontario, 2,085 of them or 8.2%, use French at least regularly at work. This proportion is higher than that of members of this professional group who have French as their first official language (6.0%). Knowledge of the French language was claimed by 18.6% of these professionals. There is a significant pool of professionals who can speak French compared to those who use the language at work and compared to the 4.5% of the French-speaking population in the province.

The largest proportion of psychologists and social workers who use French at work (72.6%) is observed in the Southeast of Ontario. Slightly more than half of these professionals say that they use French most often at work. A significant proportion of these professionals are not members of the official-language minority since only 51.2% of them have French as their first official language. The French-speaking population in this region represents 41.3% of the total population.

While the French-speaking minority constitutes 16.9% of Ottawa's population, 34.4% of psychologists and social workers use French at work (11.9% most often, 22.5% regularly). The proportion of psychologists and social workers who use French at work is higher than that of French-speaking professionals practicing in that city (22.5%). Almost half of all psychologists and social workers in Ottawa (49.1%) say that they can conduct a conversation in the minority language.

Even in Toronto, the proportion of psychologists and social workers who use French at least regularly at work (3.8%) considerably exceeds the proportion of the French-speaking population (1.9%). Moreover, the proportion of these professionals who say that they know French is almost 5 times higher (15.0%). In the Rest of the province, this proportion is 11.1%. Fewer than 2% of these professionals use French at work.

Other health care professionals

Grouping other health care professionals into a single category has the advantage of giving an overview of the language characteristics and use by these professionals. However, it has the disadvantage of grouping several professions together without it being possible to distinguish among them. 11  Nevertheless, this approach allows us to see to what extent this grouping of "other" professionals is different from the professional groups already presented in this report.

Outside Quebec, the 2006 Census enumerated 473,210 other health care professionals, of whom 22,055 (4.7%) had French as their first official language. By comparison, 25,090 professionals stated that they use this language at least regularly at work (5.3%). As for the ability to conduct a conversation in French, 57,220 health care professionals, or 12.1%, stated they know this language.

In 2006, the population with French as its first official language spoken outside Quebec represented 4.2% of the total population. The relative share of other health care professionals belonging to the official-language minority group (6.6%) is thus higher than that of the French-speaking population.

In Quebec, of 167,940 other health care professionals enumerated in 2006, 16,635, or 9.9%, had English as their first official language. As mentioned earlier, the Anglophone share of the total population of Quebec is 13.4%. By comparison, 59,530 "other" health care professionals, or 35.4%, stated that they use English at least regularly at work (of whom 11.7% use it most often). As for the number of other health care professionals who said that they can conduct a conversation in English, this was 83,135 individuals (49.5%).

Eastern Canada

For all provinces combined, there is no statistical difference between the proportion of the population with French as its first official language in the Eastern part of the country and that of other health care professionals who are also members of the French-speaking minority (2.8%). The same is true with regard to the use of this language at least regularly at work (2.9%). In this part of Canada, the proportion of other health care professionals who can conduct a conversation in French is 9.6%.

Western and Northern Canada

Western Canada has 3,940 other health professionals with French as their first official language. This is 2.0% of the 197,850 other health care professionals in these four provinces. By comparison, 1.4% of these professionals say that they use French at work and 7.9% or 15,725 indicate that they can conduct a conversation in French.

In the three territories combined, while the Francophones represented 2.6% of the total population in 2006, the share of other health care professionals was not statistically significant. The same is true for the use of French at work by these professionals. Finally, we note that 13.8% of these professionals said that they could conduct a conversation in French.

New Brunswick and its regions

Of the 15,940 other health care professionals in New Brunswick, 6,000 or 37.4% of them have the minority language as their first official language spoken. By comparison, 44.5% of these professionals say that they use French at work (34.3% most often, 10.2% regularly) and more than 50% of them say that they can conduct a conversation in French.

As for the province's regions, the gap between the share of French-speaking population and that of other health care professionals of this language group is not statistically significant. However, in the three regions of New Brunswick discussed in this report, the proportion of health care professionals who use French at least regularly at work is higher than the share represented by the French-speaking population in the province.

Almost all of these health care professionals in Northern New Brunswick (82%) use French most often at work, while 10.2% use it regularly. In Southeastern New Brunswick, 62.2% of other health care professionals use French at least regularly, of whom two thirds use it most often. In these two regions, the proportion of professionals who indicate that they know French barely exceeds the proportion of those who use this language at work. Finally, in the Rest of the province, 2.8% of other health care professionals state that they use French most often at work and 7.1% use it regularly. By comparison, 20.6% of these professionals know the minority language.

Quebec and its regions

In all of Quebec's regions discussed in this report, the proportion of other health care professionals in the minority category is lower than the share of the English-speaking population. The proportion of other health care professionals using English regularly in the workplace is always higher than their share of the minority-speaking population or the percentage of the English-speaking population in these regions. In Montréal, for example, 52% of these health care professionals state that they use English at least regularly at work whereas 22.3% of the population has English as its first official language. In Western Quebec, the corresponding proportions are 46.7% and 13.3%. As with doctors, nurses, psychologists and social workers, the proportion of other professionals who state that they can conduct a conversation in English is much higher. In Montréal, 63% of these professionals say that they know English.

Ontario and its regions

In Ontario, the share represented by other French-speaking health care professionals was 5.0% in 2006. By comparison, 6.3% of them use French at work, which is higher than the proportion of the French-speaking population in the province (4.5%). Moreover, 13.3% (about 30,000) of these professionals say that they could conduct a conversation in French. Certain regions of Ontario are worthy of attention in light of what has already been observed among doctors. Thus, 31.0% of other health care professionals use French at least regularly at work in the North-East of the province, 34.4% in Ottawa and 59.3% in the South-East. Likewise, the level of knowledge of French by these professionals in the three regions were 36.5%, 43.6% and 63.8% respectively. Finally, in Toronto, the proportion of these other health care professionals with knowledge of French is considerably higher (7.9%) than the share of these workers who use the minority language at work (1.3%).

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