Category(s):
Health
Status: Active
Principal: François Gallant
Project Number: P0131
Year Approved: 2025
New Brunswick (NB) is Canada’s only bilingual province. In the 2021 Census, 26.4% of New Brunswickers reported French as their language most often spoken at home, and 29.5% reported French as their mother tongue. In addition, 34% of New Brunswickers were considered bilingual.
NB’s Official Languages Act imposes on provincial government organizations, including hospitals, the obligation to serve the public either French or English. However, NB continues to encounter language barriers affecting subgroups of its population. Language differences between patients and their care providers are recognized as a major barrier to delivering quality healthcare. When patients and healthcare providers share the same primary language, it can lead to increased accuracy of patient assessments, appropriate examinations, diagnoses, and prescribed medications. Research from Ontario shows that when patients and physicians share a primary language, there is a significant reduction in negative outcomes like hospital readmissions, emergency visits after discharge, and deaths.
Despite NB mandates healthcare services be available in both French and English, practical challenges persist for Francophone New Brunswickers living in majority Anglophone areas of the province. Few studies exist to validate the level of access to services in a resident’s preferred language or to examine the outcomes for patients who can or cannot receive care in either their primary language. It is critical that this knowledge gap is addressed to improve understanding of the demand for French language health services and how the province may be able to better meet the needs of its population.
