That's why we think it's vital for the bilateral health agreements with provinces and territories to be anchored in a holistic national nursing retention strategy. We don't have a choice.
When we talk about poaching, the reality is that when nurses are tired, when nurses are frustrated and when they're not getting their needs met, they're going to go and look somewhere else. The reality is that we're seeing poaching happening. Apparently, India has now told organizations going into that country to recruit nurses that they have to stop, because India needs its nurses there.
We saw what happened here in New Brunswick when Nova Scotia came out with retention bonuses or retention incentives to keep its nurses. For us, that's another story, but nurses were so frustrated and felt so disrespected. Everybody needs to work together. All of the provinces need to work together so that we can find a balance.
If we're going to do this, we need to support nurses throughout their continuing work. If we have a licensed practical nurse who wants to become a nurse practitioner, having a pan-Canadian nurse workforce plan will help with that, because we'll be able to treat everybody the same way.
By improving retention and recruitment in each province, hopefully we will encourage nurses who have trained in Manitoba to stay in Manitoba and work there and not go somewhere else because they feel the working conditions are better or the salary's better.