Anglo panel sounds familiar

Re: “Committee created to oversee anglos’ access to health services” (Montreal Gazette, April 10)

With six months before the next election, the Quebec government has enthusiastically announced the creation of a committee to oversee anglophones’ access to health services. Eric Maldoff, representing the Quebec Community Groups Network, is quoted as saying “our right to health and social services in our language depends on the creation of proper access plans that spell out the services we can access” and we will have “suing rights” so that “once an access program has been developed and approved … it’s a right enshrined by law.”

Interestingly, in the 1980s — at a time when the government of the day was also concerned about the softness of the anglophone vote — the Liberals passed Bill 142, “an Act respecting health services and social services” recognizing the right of English-speaking Quebecers to receive such services in their language.

Those rights depended on “the services planned for in the Access program for English language services to be drawn up and approved.”

Sounds awfully familiar to the mandate of the new committee announced this week.

If the right of Englishspeaking people in Quebec to receive health and social services in their language was already enshrined in legislation in 1986, why now suddenly announce a committee?

The QCGN — and particularly Eric Maldoff, who was involved in the push for Bill 142 in 1986 — should remind the government that legislation was already created and it should be enforced. This seemingly improvised creation of a committee unfortunately seems like another cynical pre-election ploy. Robert Libman, Côte-St-Luc