A local council is keeping funding from a Cornwall hospital to protest their bilingual hiring practices.
South Stormont council voted Wednesday night to withhold around $30,000 from the Cornwall Community Hospital because of their French-speaking job requirements.
Protesters said the hospital only hires people who speak French, regardless of their other qualifications.
"We want the people to get the jobs according to their abilities, not according to their language," said Michel Arcand. "We've got nothing against the French and the English thing, we're not fighting against that; we're fighting for our jobs."
"I've lost 13 positions, full-time and part-time, to bilingual people with lesser seniority," said Cathy Jodoin. "Even people that have come from the street that are bilingual strictly with no qualifications."
The hospital said its bilingual policy only applies to some positions.
"Does this mean that all jobs at the Cornwall Community Hospital require French language skills? No." said Greg Downing with the hospital.
"When no viable candidate is available to fill a vacancy, what do we do? We fill it, we don't wait to find the perfect bilingual candidate."
There were 217 job openings in 2011, according to the hospital's website.
Of those, 132 required bilingual skills including all full-time nursing vacancies.
There has been no date set for talks to resume between the hospital and council.
"What they want here, 100 per cent French, doesn't go with the ratio with the population," said protester Laurie Branchaud. "We're hoping they're going to admit there's an error here and perhaps we can fix it."
"They're trying to pinpoint this as being against the French, we're not against the French," Jodoin said. "We just want fairness, equality for all and we want to make a difference. This has to stop."
With a report from CTV Ottawa's Katie Griffin
