Press Release

Wednesday, July 31, 2019

Université de Moncton’s response to the complaint filed with the Commissioner of Official Languages for New Brunswick

The following statement is from Jacques Paul Couturier, Interim President and Vice-Chancellor of Université de Moncton. It comes on the heels of the signing and filing of a complaint with the Commissioner of Official Languages for New Brunswick by several people who are studying nursing, practising nursing or who have practised nursing.

New Brunswick is experiencing a shortage of Francophone nurses. We are committed to trying to resolve this issue as quickly as possible by working with all stakeholders to improve decisions related to the entry-to-practice examination. The Nurses Association of New Brunswick (NANB) is a professional association that has the power to make decisions regarding access to and the practising of the nursing profession. It is subject to the provisions of the Official Languages Act. For this reason, we support the decision of the group that filed a complaint with the Commissioner of Official Languages for New Brunswick.

By keeping the American NCLEX-RN exam in place as the entry-to-practice examination, NANB is violating the Official Languages Act and impeding the entry of skilled labour into the workforce.

Given that Francophone resources to prepare for this examination are very limited, we find it regrettable that Francophone candidates continue to be penalized after having made multiple requests to NANB.

Nobody can be discriminated against based on the fact that they have exercised their right to choose the official language in which they meet the requirements of their professional association. We maintain that the NCLEX-RN examination penalizes graduates who choose the French language to meet the requirements of NANB.

Currently, this linguistic inequality adversely affects the entry into the workforce of many nurses and aggravates the shortage in New Brunswick’s hospitals.

We reiterate that the use of a Canadian bilingual entry examination remains the best solution to this problem. It would mean that Francophone and Anglophone students are provided with the same resources to prepare for their entry-to-practice examination.
 


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