We're here to examine the health care workforce shortage and what we can do about it now. As somebody who graduated from medical school in 1986, I've been doing this a long time, and you know what? Nothing has changed. We had a shortage of people, particularly in under-serviced areas, 35 years ago. We still have that shortage.
The answer has always seemed clearly to me to be in front of our noses: foreign graduates. There have always been a lot of foreign graduates in Canada. I've certainly known enough of them in my time who find it very hard to get licensed in Canada. There has been this mismatch. There's been a need and there's been a desire of foreign-trained doctors to work in under-serviced areas. What is the problem?
I've asked this of a few people here, I think. I'm not sure what the problem is.
Certainly, I have some suspicion that it's medical protectionism. Organizations like the CMA and the OMA are dominated by doctors from big cities. When you work in big cities, which I've done a little bit—I've done far more work in under-serviced areas—you want patients. You're competing for patients. You want to maintain your salary. I somewhat suspect that the problem is doctors not wanting to make it easy to license foreign-trained doctors.
The other possibility is that the provinces realize that more billing numbers equal higher health care costs.
I throw that out there as two possibilities. I wanted to ask Ms. Lefebvre from the federal regulatory authority for her views on this matter. What has been the barrier to licensing more foreign graduates?