April 15, 2020
Hon. Doug Ford
Premier of Ontario
Main Legislative Building
Queen’s Park
Toronto ON M7A 1A1
Dear Premier Ford:
We are writing to strongly urge you to add a French content component to your daily briefings. While you hold a daily briefing in English, there is no equivalent French content for the francophone community.
Ontario’s francophone community is going through the same crisis as the rest of the province. At risk are our most vulnerable: francophone seniors who are not receiving the live, direct detailed information about COVID-19 in French. Many of our francophone seniors are not able to understand the information currently being communicated by our government and are turning to Premier Legault’s briefings to receive communications in French that are crucial for their health and security.
The solution to this problem is simple: please make a ministry representative available to summarize the daily press conference in French and to take questions in French during the press conference.
We urge you to take action on this immediately. Ontario Liberals remain committed to working with the government to combat COVID-19.
Regards,
Stephen Blais, MPP for Orléans Lucille Collard, MPP for Ottawa-Vanier Amanda Simard, MPP for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell