Thank you very much. I didn't know I was going to have the opportunity to do this.
Ms. Armstrong, thank you.
I am filling in today on the committee for one of my colleagues who is travelling with the Prime Minister. I'm delighted to be here.
I'm an entrepreneur. I come from a business background, so I am always excited to hear that there are opportunities for women to step into business.
I often speak to young people in schools. When I ask them what they are planning to do after school and they say “go to university and get a job after that”, I say “what about creating a job?” When you have a job, somebody else is going to determine where you work, when you work, and how much you're going to make. The freedom of being in business for yourself and creating your own future, pursuing your own dreams, is nothing less than miraculous.
Whenever I go to ribbon-cutting events in my constituency, it is one of the most spectacular and hopeful things that I could ever do. Next to seeing a new baby, seeing the birth of a new business is seeing someone who is living their dream.
I was cutting the ribbon for a new spa in Newmarket established by a woman who came to Canada about seven years ago. She has taken her skills training and decided that this is what she wants to do. She is living a dream that is uncommon.
I always applaud women. I applaud everybody who goes into business for themselves, but particularly women who take that step and who want to live their dream. It is so exciting.
I want to step back for a minute, though, and ask for your commentary on how we move forward this whole idea of the professions. You would know better than anybody that this is provincial jurisdiction. We may bring the people in as newcomers to Canada, that's our responsibility as the federal government, but under our Constitution, licensing of professionals is purely a responsibility in the jurisdiction of the provinces. It's by Constitution. No one wants to open the Constitution and have that debate.
Oftentimes we see that it is restricted even more by the associations of the professionals. In Ontario, I know that the foreign-trained doctor program, for instance, takes in about 200 people per year. It's purely academic; it's based on academic ability.
However, there needs to be some relaxation. I agree with you that there needs to be some negotiation. If you come from a country, Germany, for instance, or France, or England, I wouldn't have any problems going to have a surgery in any of those countries.
Is there some negotiation we can start to make with these professional associations, even across Canada, where we can say, “Look, you're trained in Ontario. For goodness sake, your licence ought to be acceptable in Newfoundland”, or vice versa?
We currently have some 450 credentialing agencies across this country. How do we start to break down those barriers and then have the negotiations internationally?
