Fredericton (January 21, 2025) — The Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages for New Brunswick is releasing the 2023-2024 Annual Report which details its activities between April 1, 2023, and March 31, 2024.
“During the year covered in this report, I felt compelled to issue a press release in response to numerous complaints my office received about the eVisitNB platform which many New Brunswickers use to access primary health care services. The details of the investigations are summarized in the 2023-2024 Annual Report,” said Commissioner MacLean. “In all the eVisitNB cases, the complainants did not receive the services they requested in French, their official language of choice. That is unacceptable. I have been following up on the implementation of my recommendations and I am unsatisfied with the seeming lack of engagement to rectify the issues.”
The complaints regarding eVisitNB highlighted how utilizing rapidly evolving technology can be problematic if language rights are not taken into consideration when developing new systems that will be used by the public to access services.
“Decision makers often turn to technology to find solutions to long-standing problems, to increase access to government services, or to simplify everyday tasks; but when these solutions are created, government departments must ensure they respect their obligations pursuant to the Official Languages Act,” added Commissioner MacLean.
Between April 1, 2023, and March 31, 2024, the Office of the Commissioner received 131 complaints. Of these, 66 were admissible, 8 alleging a lack of service in English and 58 alleging a lack of service in French. In addition, 46 admissible complaints alleging a lack of service in French were carried over from previous years. Furthermore, 84 requests for information were submitted to the Office of the Commissioner.
In her message contained in the Annual Report, the Commissioner reiterates that the previous review of the Official Languages Act (OLA) was a missed opportunity to strengthen official language rights and to move the dial ahead towards substantive equality between New Brunswick’s two official linguistic communities.
“Unfortunately, in my view, apart from the creation of the Secretariat of Official Languages, the most recent review of the OLA was a step back for official language rights in the province, especially for our francophone linguistic minority,” said Commissioner MacLean.
In order to reverse this missed opportunity, the Commissioner suggests that the government adopt further recommendations contained in the Finn-McLaughlin Report, noting that this does not necessitate re-opening the review process.
“I call on Premier Holt to adopt further recommendations that were included in the Finn-McLaughlin Report so that we can see meaningful amendments which will bring us closer to achieving true equality of our two official linguistic communities. Much of this work has already been done, now I ask the new government to implement some of the positive measures which were recommended,” concluded Commissioner MacLean.
Full report: https://bit.ly/OCOLNB_AR2023-24