I will take the example of EI, which we've been working on since 1999. I'm not sure if the committee knows, but if you're a plumber in this country, you can apply with your employer to take an apprenticeship program under EI, get your education, your salary paid, and then you get the next level of being a plumber. But if you're under a category of a professional, that is not available.
So if I look at LPNs, licensed practical nurses, in lay terms they are assisting nurses. A lot of them would like to become registered nurses. But you need to leave your job; you have to go to a full-time, four-year program, and there's no bridge funding or anything that could help them. A lot of registered nurses are from the old school program, the two-year or three-year program. They would like to do their baccalaureate program--again, no bridge funding--or, even better, to go as a nurse practitioner--again, no bridge funding. It's those kinds of issues that we could apply under EI immediately if we modify the apprenticeship program.
When we look at the shortage and the service delivery model, yes, it's a crisis. I've just been to Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and I arrived with Kaaren on a flight this morning. We have nurse practitioners in both of those provinces who are eager to work in their full scope of practice and they're not allowed to because of either a provincial regulation or the team they're working in. So I get very nervous when I hear a different health care worker as a physician's assistant. Well, we're going to introduce something else when what we currently have is not even put into practice. I have issues and concerns with that.
Even if Andrew is a specialist in the blood sector, thank God, and not in psychiatry...I'm not completely insane, to put it on the record; I'm just very determined, Andrew.
Thank you.