Bill 264 explained in plain English

Bill 264, the Health Insurance Amendment Act (Linguistic Identity and French Diacritics on Health Cards), 2021, would amend the Health Insurance Act to require the collection of linguistic identity data for health services planning and to ensure health cards reflect communication language preference and allow for French diacritics.

This bill proposes to change the Health Insurance Act. It would require the Minister of Health and the General Manager of the Ontario Health Insurance Plan to collect information about the linguistic identity of people who have health insurance in Ontario. This information would be used for planning health services. Specifically, the data collected would relate to the number of insured people whose first language is French, those whose first language is not English or French but who use French at home, and others who prefer to receive services in French. The bill also requires that health cards indicate whether an insured person needs to communicate in French or English for health services, and that health cards allow for the use of French diacritics (like accents).