About Us » History

1998

In 1998, the Franco-Ontarian community, supported by Francophones from coast to coast, took charge of its destiny and made every effort to inform and convince governments of the legitimacy of its cause in the Montfort Hospital crisis.

Noting that the country was at a crossroads in relation to one of Canada’s fundamental values, namely linguistic duality, the federal government became involved. Working hand-in-hand with the community, Canadian Heritage identified a means of both strengthening the Montfort Hospital’s mission as a medical teaching centre and improving access to French language health services.  A Centre national de formation en santé was thus created based on a partnership between the Montfort Hospital and the University of Ottawa and with financial support from Canadian Heritage.

1999 - 2003

An initial four-year experimental project was established (January 1999 to March 2003) dubbed the Centre national de formation en santé, with coordination by the University of Ottawa and funding from Canadian Heritage ($10 million).

In 2002 and 2003, five university institutions joined forces with the University of Ottawa and participated in the planning and development of phase II of this initial project to create a training and research project in the French language health field. These institutions included the Université Sainte-Anne, Université de Moncton, Laurentian University, Collège universitaire de Saint-Boniface and Campus Saint-Jean of the University of Alberta, followed by the Centre de formation médicale du Nouveau-Brunswick through the Entente Québec/Nouveau-Brunswick.   The college system then joined this network of universities, with the following colleges coming on board: the New Brunswick Community College – Campbellton Campus, La Cité collégiale in Ottawa and Collège Boréal in Sudbury. An organization of 10 postsecondary institutions thus took shape under a new name as the Consortium national de formation en santé (CNFS).

2003 – 2008

The foundations of phase II of the CNFS were thus in place and confirmed the need to create a consortium within which all parties would have the same rights and privileges and could work together to share inter-institutional resources, knowledge and competencies, in light of the limited number of Francophone human resources and programs available in French and the varying training needs from one region or province to another.

The 10 participating educational institutions went on to submit the CNFS’s training and research project, which was then approved and funded by Health Canada ($63 million) as part of the Action Plan for Official Languages for the period 2003-2008.

2008 – 2013

In the wake of the development of the Roadmap for Canada’s Linguistic Duality 2008-2013, the entire CNFS consisting of its 11 member institutions (the Collège Acadie Ile-du-Prince-Édouard  having since joined the Consortium) and Health Canada’s Official Language Community Development Bureau (OLCDB) went on to develop phase III of the CNFS for the period 2008-2013.

Through the CNFS-Health Canada partnership, a substantial five-year budget envelop ($86.5 million) was provided for the 2008-2013 period.