It is encouraging to see that a provincial government often rightly accused of taking near-blanket electoral support from anglophones for granted has come across with funding for a major initiative in aid of English-speaking seniors.
The minister responsible for seniors, Marguerite Blais, announced on the weekend that the Quebec Community Groups Network will be granted just shy of $275,000 to fund a three-year research undertaking that is projected to lead to the establishment of a provincewide advocacy network for anglophone seniors.
Such a group has been under discussion and its need evident for some time. French-speaking seniors outside Quebec already benefit from such an organization in the form of the Fédération des aînées et aînés francophones du Canada.
The research project will seek to identify specific needs and problems facing the growing number of anglo seniors in Quebec. By last count there were 132,485 over the age of 65.
The QCGN is right in maintaining that English-speaking seniors in Quebec constitute a special demographic with special needs, because they are a linguistic minority group within the province’s French-language majority, which is in turn a linguistic minority in Canada.
Some of the problems facing the anglo-senior community are readily evident:
The anglo community as a whole is aging more quickly than the francophone community, with a higher percentage of people aged 65 and over in most of the province’s administrative regions.
Due to the relatively high level of out-migration from Quebec’s minority community, English-speaking seniors tend to be more vulnerable to social isolation than their francophone counterparts, without the support of contemporaries and family members who have left the province.
Anglophone seniors are hampered by being the age group with the lowest level of bilingualism, having lacked both the imperative and opportunities to learn French in their youth, contrary to more recent generations of Quebec anglos.
Problems previously identified by the QCGN include insufficient access to information in English about government services, notably medicare and community resources available to seniors. There is furthermore insufficient low-cost housing, inadequate home-care support and shortages of day centres and of activities provided in English in seniors’ residences.
The executive director of the QCGN, Sylvia Martin-Laforge, is right when she says that everything points to a need to have English-speaking seniors visible in the formulation of public policy in Quebec.
An advocacy group for anglo seniors, such as the one the organization proposes, would go a long way toward meeting that need.
The QCGN will be applying to the federal government for funding to launch and maintain such an advocacy group. The federal government already sustains the existing French-language equivalent with funding from both the Canadian Heritage and Health departments.
Fairness demands that a counterpart for anglophone seniors should get proportional backing from Ottawa.
The provincial government, meanwhile, should recognize and make a greater effort to meet the needs of the aging anglophone community.