Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.
As you know, my name is Tim Guest. I am a registered nurse and I am the chief executive officer of the Canadian Nurses Association. I want to acknowledge today that I am speaking to you from Mi'kma'ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi'kmaq.
The Canadian Nurses Association is grateful for the opportunity to appear again on this important study alongside our colleagues, the Canadian Medical Association and the College of Family Physicians of Canada. We continue to hope that the committee's work will lead to meaningful and much-needed action to address Canada's health workforce crisis.
I'd first like to recognize that today marks a very special occasion as we celebrate the start of National Nursing Week and Indigenous Nurses Day. This week, we recognize the important contribution of nurses. Their knowledge, expertise, leadership and compassionate care are an inspiration to us all as they continue to answer the call despite the crisis they face.
Nurses and health care workers are at a breaking point. This is an urgent national issue, and pan-Canadian collaboration is needed to address this multi-faceted crisis.
CNA is grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with the Canadian Medical Association and the College of Family Physicians of Canada in developing a road map of solutions. I want to highlight three key elements from that road map for you today.
First, this is a crisis of retention more than of recruitment. In the short term, we need to stop the bleeding and help keep nurses and health care workers in their jobs. Canada needs to implement retention strategies and improve nurses' well-being. If no effective strategies are put in place to retain the nurses we have now, no other strategy will make a difference. Nurses need mental health supports, and their workloads need to be reasonable to make sure they will stay. Funding for retention bonuses for late-career nurses and federal income tax relief for health care workers can also help. Also, student loan forgiveness shouldn't be exclusive for those practising in rural and remote areas since we are also seeing shortages in urban centres. Hiring more cleaning or support staff could also be effective to allow nurses more time to provide nursing care.
Second, in the medium term, we need to increase system capacity to educate and train health care workers and accelerate the licensing and employment of internationally educated health care workers. Internationally educated nurses, or IENs, report great difficulty in practising in Canada. Barriers include immigration status, long processing times and registration costs. Targeted federal funding could help increase resources for regulatory bodies. Funding could also help offset licensing costs for IENs. Although IENs already living in Canada should be a part of addressing the crisis, they are not a quick-fix solution. CNA also urges caution on the recruitment of IENs currently living in other countries due to the global shortage of nurses. A special focus on ethical recruitment is important.
Finally, in the long term, Canada needs to urgently improve workforce mobility data collection and to establish a dedicated mental health strategy for health care workers to ensure they are supported during crises. As members of a female-dominated profession, nurses are often care providers for their children and family while they are experiencing burnout at work. However, access to mental health supports is lacking, especially in comparison to that available in other public sector jobs, including male-dominated professions such as fire and police services. In 2019, for example, the federal government launched an action plan to help address the mental wellness of public safety officers.
Furthermore, we agree with our colleagues from the Canadian Medical Association and the College of Family Physicians of Canada on the importance of scaling up primary care in Canada, and on the need for further supports for primary care practitioners, including physicians and nurses. We need to strengthen patient-partnered care and respond to the evolving needs of the population by advancing primary care through an interprofessional approach.
In conclusion, when it comes to looking at how we provide better health care in Canada, we need to look first at our health workforce. They are the backbone of the Canadian health care system. They make everything else work. Retaining and caring for them is at the heart of resolving many of the challenges that our health care system faces.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll be happy to take questions.