Montfort Hospital

The Montfort Hospital is a hospital in Ottawa, Canada. It is noted for being the only francophone hospital in the province of Ontario. When the government of Mike Harris threatened to close the hospital it sparked national controversy.

The hospital was founded in 1953 by the Filles de la Sagesse Catholic order and was named after one of its founders Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort. It was secularized in 1970. In the late 1980s it was rebuilt with a large modern section added. The hospital is the only one in Ontario offers a full range of services in French, it is also Ontario's only French language teaching hospital. About 40% of Ontario's French speaking population lives in the area served by the hospital.

Provincial restructuring
In February 1997 the Health Services Restructuring Commission, appointed by the provincial government of Mike Harris, announced that the hospital would be closed in 1999 alongside the Riverside and Grace. This caused an outcry in the Franco-Ontarian community. Quebec premier Lucien Bouchard and Prime Minister Jean Chrétien both lent their support to keeping the hospital open. Quebec Liberal leader Daniel Johnson and federal Progressive Conservative leader Jean Charest also asked Harris to keep the hospital open. The Tory government asserted that francophone access to medical service would be fully available at the bilingual The Ottawa Hospital and that the 200 bed Montfort was too small to operate efficiently. Harris criticized Bouchard and Chrétien for intervening in an issue clearly out of their jurisdiction.

A lobby group S.O.S Montfort was set up led by former Vanier mayor Gisèle Lalonde. Franco-Ontarian business leaders donated money to keep the hospital open and a rally was held on March 22, 1997 at the Ottawa Civic Centre that drew 10,000 people. In total, 126,000 people signed a petition calling for it to remain open. In the face of this opposition the Restructuring Commission agreed to review its decision. In April the government backed down and floated a new plan that would see the Montfort building closed, but the hospital continuing as an independent francophone entity within the General. The Montfort supporters rejected this compromise.

The new plan
In August 1997 the Restructuring Commission released its new plan. The Montfort would remain open but it would only treat out patients and would be reduced to 66 beds. This upset Franco-Ontarian groups, but others, including Chrétien, accepted it as a reasonable compromise. Lalonde and SOS Montfort disagreed and decided to take the matter to the courts, arguing the cuts were an attack on minority language rights. In late 1998 the Restructuring Commission further reduced the proposed cuts. One element of this plan was a $10 million dollar infusion of money from the federal government for joint French language medical training program at the University of Ottawa and the Montfort. The court battle continued and in a precedent setting case a court ruled in 1999 that the hospital cuts violated language rights. In 2001 a higher court upheld the decision and the province abandoned its plans to close the hospital.

Upon their election in 2003 the provincial Liberal announced a $250 million expansion plan that will see the Montfort double in size by 2007.

National Defence Medical Centre
It was announced in 2003 that 2 floors of the Montfort will become home to the new National Defence Medical Centre.

Hôpital Montfort