The reason I speak to the importance of locums across the country is so that rural doctors will know they can get a break when they need it. They're already developing national standards around licensure and encouraging the provinces to work together for licensure. I think that's great work and it would be great if that would continue.
I would love to see it happen so that there would be a registry. When we know in advance that a doctor is going to need time away, we could contact that registry, which would put us in touch with interested doctors. It's a great way for doctors to help out colleagues across the country to see how different systems work across the country. I think the more we know about the practice in different parts of the country, the better our health care system gets overall.
That's what I see. I would see it as a standardized licensure process and then having something where there would be a degree of reciprocity. A province would see that a doctor is already licensed in another jurisdiction in Canada that has very similar standards to its own and they could extend temporary licensure quickly to that doctor to allow them to come to help out.
Those are some of the components I would see as being part of that.