An Institutional Ethnographic Analysis of the Organization of French Healthcare and Disability Services for Francophones in Canada

This Institutional Ethnographic study analyzes how the Canadian healthcare systems in the provinces of Manitoba, Ontario, and the Northwest Territories are organized around the French language. Eight Francophone parents of disabled children were interviewed from 2015 onwards as part of the Inclusive Early Childhood Service System Project. The participants’ experiences describe how the healthcare systems force minority-language speakers to conform to the monolingual Anglophone systems by making them speak English and having limited availability of French services and health information. Additionally, the data detailed the work that French-speaking families do to use services in their chosen language, such as being advocates for their child, travelling to French services, and navigating the healthcare system with little help from healthcare professionals. The findings demonstrate that the Canadian provincial and territorial healthcare systems are organized in a monolingual way and more needs to be done to help all minority-language speakers in Canada.