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Once upon a time there were eight regional health authorities. 4 informally ran in French and 4 in English. The English were very large compared to the French ones excepting the Dumont which was small but would be about 4th largest in NB overall.
They all “complimented”each other and there was less duplication or really very http://little.So higher specialty programs like all burn units,neurological units, heart centre, teaching were all without exception in the English authorities. Why?
Because the little francophone authorities couldn’t compete with the big urban anglophone centres so they were more primary care and some tertiary services at the Dumont but nothing high end specialty. So what happened? Well we reduced the authorities to two big ones.
Then what happened?Well,they both had significant weight to seek new specialty services be in time divided between them.Each became a teaching university as well. All run under the official languages act and guess what?All the clinics in each were filled with both language groups
When the greatly beloved minister of the day did this he was challenged in court. Some francophone physicians said this was an interference in a cultural institution because he took away their spending power:S 16.1 of the charter. It was resolved by “ratrappage”...catch up.
This new approach of an informal amalgamation of the two authorities can be challenged by the same constitutional section (don’t freak at me I didn’t dream up the constitution)because it lessens Vitalités ability to compete or be balance for an equal distribution of prov programs
If there is not an equal distribution of programs then you are effectively removing that potential in the future and thus interfering with a cultural institution. A hospital is not a cultural instruction even though created by religious orders in French speaking areas.....hmmm
Well in fact hospitals are cultural instructions. See the Montfort decision in Ont. Only French speaking hospital to be closed down....stopped by the courts. So will the new approach of Mr Higgs work?
It may work if there is some guarantee of an equitable division of specialty services that is acceptable.But language divisions leveraged for political purposes several years ago have resulted in a Liberal party virtually exclusively with Franco MLAs and Tory party the opposite
Who on the inside of Govt constantly can be vigilant for balance? One is not enough. It’s not enough for opposition members to yell a few times a year. They won’t know what is being done. Likely this will all go thru but it won’t be equitable when the dust settles.