Thank you very much.
Thank you all for coming.
I'd like to begin by reading the communiqué from the 2004 health accord, of which one of the items was the strategic health human resources action plans.
There is a need to increase supply of health care professionals in Canada, including doctors, nurses, pharmacists and technologists. These shortages are particularly acute in some parts of the country.
As part of efforts to reduce wait times, First Ministers agree to continue and accelerate their work on Health Human Resources action plans and/or initiatives to ensure an adequate supply and appropriate mix of health care professionals. These plans and initiatives will build on current work in the area of health labour relations, interdisciplinary training, investments in post-secondary education, and credentialing of health professionals. Recognizing the important contribution of health care providers in facilitating reforms, First Ministers commit to involving them in their work in this area. To facilitate better planning and management of HHR, First Ministers acknowledge the need to foster closer collaboration among health, post-secondary education and labour market sectors.
Federal, Provincial and Territorial governments agree to increase the supply of health professionals, based on their assessment of the gaps and to make their action plans public, including targets for the training, recruitment and retention of professionals by December 31, 2005. Federal, Provincial and Territorial governments will make these commitments public and regularly report on progress.
The federal government commits to: accelerate and expand the assessment and integration of internationally trained health care graduates for participating governments; targeted efforts in support of Aboriginal communities and Official Languages Minority Communities to increase the supply of health care professionals for these communities; measures to reduce the financial burden on students in specific health education programs; and participate in health human resource planning with interested jurisdictions.
We need to be reminded of this because this committee has to recommend what the federal responsibility is in moving forward.
My understanding is that a federal-provincial-territorial committee was charged with doing this. I have concerns that the federal participation in that committee has been modest at best. It's better than the national pharmaceutical strategy, where they haven't even appointed a federal co-chair.
If you were writing the recommendations about how the federal government needs to redouble its efforts in taking to heart--obviously in terms of aboriginal health human resources--the areas in which the government needs to show, in terms of the international medical graduate slots, supervised slots, an ability to assess people early, as Ian has said, and if they aren't going to make it, to be able to move them early to physician assistance or hospital lists or be able to use their skills in their own language...
I know what the report card from most people is, in terms of the federal participation in this. Either in this hearing now or for you to forward to us, we would love to know your recommendation on the role the federal government must play in moving forward. Clearly, poaching people from province to province isn't working.
How do we get more health human resources, and what role can the federal government play?