Section 3: An examination of the change of the number of health care professionals who know the minority language and of those who use it at work
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Growth in the number of health care professionals who knowthe official minority language in Canada, 2001 to 2006
In all the provinces and territories, the proportion of health care professionals who know the minority language increased from 2001 to 2006, as did the total number of health care professionals. In this section, the growth rate in the number of health care professionals who know the minority language will be looked at, by taking the general increase in the number of health care professionals into account, in order to determine how significant the increase or decrease was. Table 1 in the appendix shows the change in number for all health care professionals between 2001 and 2006.
The East, the West and the territories
Nunavut experienced the largest growth in the number of health care professionals having a knowledge of French in the territories and provinces with a 120% growth in the number, almost 5 times the growth rate of all health care professionals. 1 This growth is due in part to the fact that populations are small and their intercensal geographic mobility may be quite significant. In Nova Scotia, the growth in the number of health care professionals with knowledge of French (24.4%) surpassed the growth in the total number of health care professionals (14.1%) observed between 2001 and 2006.
Alberta saw the greatest growth in the number of health care professionals with knowledge of French (22.8%) in the Western provinces. This number grew in all the provinces, but generally less than the total number of health care professionals. Manitoba was the exception inasmuch as the number of health care professionals with knowledge of French increased by 10.9% while the growth rate for these professionals was 9.1%.
New Brunswick and Ontario
In New Brunswick, we note an upward trend in the number of health care professionals who know French in all regions (a growth rate of 22.3% for the province as a whole). This growth rate was slightly higher than that of all health care professionals in the province (19.1%).
In the South-East and the Rest of New Brunswick, the growth in the number of people who can speak French was relatively greater than in the Northern New Brunswick where the proportion is already at 91%. This growth rate was also higher than that of all health care professionals.
In Ontario, the number of health care professionals with a knowledge of French grew by 14.4% between 2001 and 2006, slightly less than the total number of health care professionals (17.6%). In the East of the province, the growth rate for professionals who know French (17.2% in the North-East and 20.0% in the South-East) is higher than the growth rate for all health care professionals (14.6% in the North-East and 10.4% in the South-East). In Ottawa, Toronto and the Rest of the province, the increases in the number of health care professionals with knowledge of French were 12.1%, 7.0% and 18.1% respectively. These are slightly lower than those for all health care professionals in these regions, which were 16.2%, 12.1% and 20.6% respectively.
The strong growth of the immigrant population in the country's large urban centers between 2001 and 2006 as well as the low level of knowledge of French among those immigrants can explain in part the fact that the growth in the number of health care professionals is larger than that of professionals who can speak French.
Quebec
In Quebec, the number of health care professionals who know English increased by 9.7% between 2001 and 2006. This growth rate is less than that of health care professionals (15.1%) during the same period. In the Estrie and South of Quebec regions, in Montréal and in Québec and surrounding areas, the number of health care professionals who know English grew by about 10% while the increase in the total number of health care professionals was between 15% and 19%. 2
Increase in the use of the minority language at least regularlyat work among health care professionals in Canada, 2001 to 2006
Following the description of changes in knowledge of the minority language by health care professionals, it is important to examine whether the changes observed translate into increased or decreased use of the minority language at work.
An examination of the situation is often complex. At the provincial level, minority language use may have increased between 2001 and 2006, but less than the number of speakers of that language. Some regions may have lost professionals using the minority language at work but that loss may have been compensated for in other regions. Moreover, predominant use of the minority official language may have decreased while its regular use, in addition to the use of the majority language, may have increased.
In this section, we will examine the growth in the number of health care professionals who use the minority language at work in the context of changes and growth of the number of health care professionals between 2001 and 2006.
Eastern and Western and Territories
The number of health care professionals who use French at least regularly at work grew between 2001 and 2006 in Newfoundland and Labrador and in Prince Edward Island, but the numbers were too small to conclude that this growth was statistically significant (see Table 3.3).
In Nova Scotia, the number of health care professionals who use French at least regularly at work increased by 30.8% 3 while the number of professionals who know the minority language went up by 24.4%. These growth rates are about double those for the total of health care professionals.
In Manitoba, the growth in the number of health care professionals who use French at least regularly at work (19.3%) is almost twice as strong as that of the number of all health care professionals (9.1%). The use of French most often at work in this province increased by 21.2%.
Alberta saw a 38.7% increase in the number of health care professionals who use French at work. The growth rate for the total of health care professionals between 2001 and 2006 was 25.4%. 4
The number of health care professionals saying that they use French regularly at work in British Columbia went up by 12.1%. However, its predominant use dropped by 4.0% during the same period. This change is similar to the increase in the number of all health care professionals (13.0%).
In Saskatchewan, the use of French at least regularly at work dropped by 17.4% between 2001 and 2006, while the number of those who use this language most often at work almost doubled. 5 During the same period, the number of all health care professionals increased by 7.6%.
Finally, in the three territories, the number of health care professionals using French at work is too small to be analyzed.
New Brunswick and Ontario
In New Brunswick, Canada's only officially bilingual province, the growth rate for the number of health care professionals with knowledge of French and the number of health care professionals who say that they use this language at work increased by about 22%. 6 These rates match the change in the number of health care professionals who can speak French. The number of health care professionals working in New Brunswick grew by 19.1% between 2001 and 2006.
In Northern New Brunswick, the change in the number of health care professionals with knowledge of French and for those who use this language at least regularly or most often at work was about 15%.
By comparison, the growth rate for health care professionals with knowledge of French in the South-East was 30.7%. This increase in the use of French most often at work was of the same order (27.1%). However, the number of health care professionals who indicated that they used the minority language at work at least regularly decreased by 17.1%. Considerable growth was noted in the number of health care professionals in this region (24.7%) between 2001 and 2006.
The same observation applies to Ontario. The growth in the number of health care professionals who use French at least regularly in the course of their professional activities was 17.9% province-wide while the growth for health care professionals who know this language was about the same (14.4%).
All regions in Ontario saw some growth in the number of health care professionals able to conduct a conversation in French and of professionals using this language at work. In general, its use grew slightly faster than the number of speakers. The greatest increase in the number of health care professionals using French at least regularly at work was observed in Southeastern Ontario (22.6%). 7 In this region, the change in number of health care professionals stating that they can conduct a conversation in the minority language was 20%. That is to say that the number of those using French at work has grown twice as much as the population of health care professionals (10.4 %).
In Toronto, the growth in the use of the minority language at least regularly at work grew much less rapidly (6.7%) than in the other regions. Its use most often at work even dropped by 15.0% between 2001 and 2006. However, this downward trend was accompanied by a 7.0% increase in the knowledge of the minority language, which is slightly greater than the rate for the total number of health care professionals (12.1%).
In Ottawa and in Northestern Ontario, the growth in the use of French at work paralleled the growth in the number of professionals who can speak French (12.1% and 17.2% respectively). In the case of Ottawa, the growth rate is lower than that of the overall health care professionals between 2001 and 2006 (16.2%).
Quebec
In Quebec, the use of English at least regularly at work grew by 19.9% between 2001 and 2006. 8 This is about double the increase of the knowledge of English (9.7%). The overall number of health care professionals grew by 15.1%. In Quebec as a whole and in its regions, the use of English at work increased faster than the knowledge of the minority language.
In Montréal, the use of English in the workplace increased by 18.1%. This rate of increase is almost double that of the number of health care professionals declaring a knowledge of this language (9.6%).
The largest growth in the use of English at least regularly at work was observed in Québec and surrounding area (31.1%). However, in this region, the number of health care professionals saying that they use the minority language most often at work decreased slightly by 1.1%. The growth in the number of all health care professionals went up by 17.0% between 2001 and 2006.
The increase in the use of English at least regularly at work coupled with a decrease in the number of professionals who use it most often was also observed in Eastern Quebec and in the Estrie and South of Quebec regions. As for the number of health care professionals who know English, its growth was positive, but less rapid than that in the number for all health care professionals.
Finally, the Western Quebec and the Rest of the province saw an increase in the number of health care professionals stating that they use English most often at work (13%) while the increase in the number of those who use this language at least regularly at work was 29.7% and 34.4% respectively. Between 2001 and 2006, the number of health care professionals who know the minority language in the Western Quebec region increased by 19.8%, a slightly lower growth rate than that for all health care professionals (23.1%).
Growth in knowledge of the minority language among variousgroups of health care professionals in Canada, 2001 to 2006
In general, the number of health care professionals who state that they can conduct a conversation in the minority language increased from 2001 and 2006. Two exceptions were observed – among doctors outside Quebec and among psychologists and social workers in Quebec, the number of these professionals saying that they know the minority language has dropped.
The number of nurses who can speak French outside Quebec increased by 22.2% while the number of nurses with knowledge of English went up by 7.3% in Quebec. The number of other health care professionals in Quebec who know English increased by 13.1% while the increase in knowledge of French observed outside Quebec was 65.4%.
Growth of minority language use among various groups of healthcare professionals in Canada, 2001 to 2006
Slower growth in the number of health care professionals who know the minority language does not necessarily mean that the language is used by fewer professionals at work. It could be that a large proportion of professionals already know the language and consequently the potential for growth in the number of minority language speakers among health care professionals is rather limited. It is obvious that using a minority language in the workplace requires a prior knowledge of that language, but the opposite is not necessarily true: knowledge of the minority language does not automatically result in it being used at work in all cases. Increased demand, awareness of the need to provide this service, greater proficiency in the second language or legislative measures concerning the supply of services in the minority language are all factors that might motivate a health care professional who already knows the minority language to start using it at work. It is this change in the number of health care professionals who use the minority language at work that is described in the next section.
Provinces where French is the minority language
Among doctors, the decrease in the number of individuals with knowledge of French in the provinces outside Quebec (-2.3%) is accompanied by a drop in the number of doctors who use this language at least regularly at work (-10.8%). However, this decrease is over four times greater than the decrease in the number of doctors who say that they know French. This phenomenon leads one to conclude that even doctors who previously used French at work stopped using it. It should be noted that the number of doctors outside Quebec decreased by 1.4% between 2001 and 2006.
Among nurses, increased use of French at least regularly at work was noted between the two censuses. Moreover, the number of nurses who can speak French and of those who use it at work increased along with the total number of nurses. The 22.2% increase in the number of nurses with knowledge of French was matched by a 20.0% increase in the number of those who use French at least regularly at work. 9 The number of nurses working outside Quebec grew by 19.7%.
Among psychologists and social workers, the number of professionals who use French at least regularly at work increased by 16.4%. Likewise, the number of professionals who say that they use the minority language most often at work went up by 12.7%. By comparison, the number of people with knowledge of the minority language only grew 5.3% during that period, which more or less matches the growth in the number of these professionals (6.3%).
Finally, the number of other health care professionals went up by 17.7%. The growth in the use of French at work (both most often and at least regularly) was about the same (17.4% and 21.2% respectively) while that of the knowledge of the minority language was significantly greater (65.4 %)
Use of English at work in the province of Quebec
The number of health care professionals who use English at least regularly at work increased among all groups of health care professionals, while its predominant use decreased in two groups and increased in the two others.
Among doctors, the use of English at least regularly at work went up by 7.8% while the use of English most often went down by 7.8%. Knowledge of this language increased by 4.3%. The number of these professionals went up by 10.0% between 2001 and 2006. Fewer psychologists and social workers used English most often at work (-1.2%).
This decrease in the use of the minority language most often at work was accompanied by a drop of 3.4% in knowledge of English among psychologists and social workers and an increase of 5.0% in the use of the minority language at least regularly in the workplace. Over that same period, the number of all psychologists and social workers increased by 6.4%.
Among nurses who use English at least regularly, an increase of 17.5% was noted between 2001 and 2006. 10 The number of these professionals increased by almost 10.7% during the same five-year period. The number of other health care professionals using English at least regularly at work increased by 23.7%, while the rate of knowledge of this language went up by 13.1%.
In Quebec, the use of English at least regularly by nurses and other health care professionals increased more rapidly than the numbers of these professionals. Likewise, the use of English at least regularly at work increased more rapidly than the knowledge of this language.
Proportion of health care professionals who use the minoritylanguage at work by their first official minority or majority language
This section explores the first official language spoken by health care professionals who say that they use the minority language at work. In other words, do doctors who use French at work outside Quebec do so because they have French as their first official language spoken? What proportion of health care professionals using the minority language at work have this minority language as their second language?
Eastern, Western and Northern Canada
The situation varies greatly in the six provinces and three territories outside New Brunswick, Ontario and Quebec. In Newfoundland and Labrador, for example, almost all the health care professionals who use the minority language at least regularly at work (94.7%) have English as their first official language.
In Prince Edward Island, a third of all health care professionals who use French at least regularly at work have this language as their first official language. In Nova Scotia, it is mostly French-speaking health care professionals who use this language at least regularly at work (about two thirds of them). In this province, the use of the minority language most often at work is mainly observed among health care professionals belonging to the minority language group.
In Manitoba and Saskatchewan, the proportion of health care professionals who use French at work and who have this language as their first official language exceeds 50% while in Alberta and British Columbia, it ranges from 48.1% to 38.5% respectively. In Manitoba, over 80% of health care professionals who say that they use French most often at work are French-speakers.
New Brunswick and Ontario
A large majority (almost 80%) of health care professionals in New Brunswick who use French at least regularly at work have French as their first official language spoken, particularly in the regions where Francophones constitute the greater part of the population. Thus, 86.8% of all health care professionals in the North of the province who use the minority language at least regularly at work have this language as their first official language spoken. Even in the Rest of New Brunswick, almost half (46.6%) of these professionals are Francophones. The proportion of health care professionals who say that they use French most often at work and whose first official language is also French exceeds 90% in the North and South-East of the province while it is about 72.1% in the Rest of New Brunswick.
In Ontario, 55.4% of all health care professionals who use the minority language at least regularly at work belong to the French-speaking group. The relative share of French as the first official language among these professionals is particularly high in the North-East and South-East of the province, about 65%. By comparison, this proportion is 55% in the Ottawa area. The use of the minority language most often at work is mainly observed among professionals whose first official language is French. The proportion of these professionals ranges from 48.9% in the Rest of Ontario to 87.1% in the Southeastern Ontario.
Finally, in Toronto, 69.9% of health care professionals who use French at least regularly at work have English as their first official language, while in the Rest of the province, they are divided almost equally between Francophones (43.5%) and Anglophones (56.5%).
Quebec
In Quebec, it is mainly professionals of the minority language community who use English at least regularly at work (74.6%). In all regions, their proportion exceeds 80% except in Montréal where it is 69%. In Québec and surrounding area, nine out of ten professionals who use the minority language at least regularly at work have French as their first official language spoken (94%), while in the Rest of Quebec it is more than seven out of ten (85.8%).
Unlike in anglophone provinces where professionals who use French at work come mainly from the minority language community in regions where Francophones are very concentrated, in Quebec this relationship is much less direct. In Montréal, where 80.5% of the province's English-speaking population live, 69.1% of the professionals who use this language at least regularly at work have it as their first official language. By comparison, in Northern of New Brunswick, where 54.1% of the province's Francophones live, 86.8% of health care professionals who use French at least regularly at work are Francophones.
However, the use of English most often at work by health care professionals in Quebec is characteristic of professionals whose first official language is English (60.1%) (see Table 3.8). This situation is also observed in the Eastern Quebec (55.6%) and Montréal (62.6%). Only in the Western Quebec is the proportion of French-speaking health care professionals who use English most often at work much greater (81.3%) than the use of English by English-speaking professionals.
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