Yes, that's the contradiction in the system. There is the National Nursing Assessment Service. The members of the National Nursing Assessment Service are all the regulatory bodies in all jurisdictions. It's supposed to be a sort of one boutique type of thing, but from my understanding of how it works, it's just the first step of the application. It takes about a year's time to go through this national service, and then it's back to each provincial jurisdiction. I know the regulations vary from one provincial jurisdiction and territorial jurisdiction to another, so there are more hoops to go through and more evaluations to go through. It is a very long and involved process.
I think it has improved, but I was at the International Nurse Education Conference about four years ago. There may have been some improvements, but I heard a presentation from one nurse from London, U.K., who had come to Canada, not because she was seeking out Canada, but because she had married a Canadian. She had just, after seven years, been registered to work in Ontario. She had a baccalaureate degree. I think she even had a master's of business administration. She had been managing units in England. It was a very long process.
I think there have been improvements, but the complication is that there's sort of a national assessment service but then it is a provincial and territorial decision. It varies across the country and there seem to be a lot of steps to go through.