Official Languages Health Program

The Official Languages Health Program (OLHP) aims to improve access to health services for official language minority communities (OLMCs).

On this page

• About the program
• Training and retention of health professionals
• Health networking
• Health services access project
• How the priorities were developed
• Contact information

About the program

The OLHP was launched in 2003. It is part of the government-wide Action Plan for Official Languages 2023–2028: Protection-Promotion-Collaboration. The program includes the following three mutually reinforcing components:

• training and retention of health professionals
• health networking
• health services access projects

Training and retention of health professionals

Health Canada provides support to postsecondary training institutions to increase the number of bilingual health professionals and support personnel able to serve OLMCs in the official language of their choice.

• The Association des collèges et Universités de la francophonie canadienne, Consortium national de formation en santé (ACUFC-CNFS), which includes a national secretariat and 16 postsecondary member-institutions outside Quebec, offers over 80 French-language health programs in eight provinces and works with health facilities to offer internships and placements for its students.
• Dialogue McGill offers language training to health professionals and support personnel currently employed in Quebec's health care system, as well as bursaries and internships for integrating health students and/or recently graduated bilingual health professionals in regions where there is significant need for English-language health services.

Health networking

Health networks work with various partners (communities, decision-makers, health managers, health professionals, and post-secondary institutions) to develop concrete solutions to improve access to health services for OLMCs in the official language of their choice. Targeted recipients for this component are:

• The Société Santé en français (SSF), with its 16 networks across all provinces and territories (except Quebec) for French-speaking minority communities.
• The Community Health and Social Services Network (CHSSN), with its 23 networks across Quebec for English-speaking minority communities.

Health services access projects

Projects under the current funding phase use innovative approaches to improve access to health services OLMCs.

• SSF and CHSSN support projects under the following components:
  • integration of health human resources
  • adaptation of existing health services to OLMC needs
  • knowledge development and dissemination
• Health Canada launched a call for proposals in 2023 targeting provinces and territories to support:
  • strategies for collecting data on the existing supply and potential demand for health services in the official minority language in order to better plan the provision of services
  • telehealth strategies to support OLMCs

How the priorities were developed

The OLHP’s priorities for the 2023-2028 funding phase were developed following the analysis of various sources of information, including an online consultation with OLMCs in winter 2022. The results of this consultation are available on Health Canada’s consultations site:

Consultation on the renewal of the Official Languages Health Program 2023-2028

Contact information

For more information or documentation, please contact the OLCDB at: hc.olcdb-baclo.sc@canada.ca.