Health Committee on Nov. 18th, 2025

[Burton Bailey, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

We don't double-check. Does Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada justify failing to mandate independent verification in express entry for medical professionals, effectively allowing those evading bans abroad to exploit Canada's skilled worker stream?

[Lena Metlege Diab, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

I can speak about my personal experience as a provincial minister. I was in Ireland and the U.K. At the time, I was recruiting doctors. I took with me the college of physicians. I took with me the director from the hospital who was the employer. That's what their job was. We were there as facilitators from the immigration department, but all of that work gets done by the licensing bodies or by the employers, which are the hospitals.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have 30 seconds.

[Lena Metlege Diab, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

There are many players when you're talking about health professionals, particularly doctors and the likes of what you're referring to. This is not something that somebody in IRCC conducts. It's a whole-of-system approach.

[Burton Bailey, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

When refugees come, we do criminal record checks, but when we are recruiting medical professionals, we just leave it up to the provinces.

That's probably why we have 80,000 medical professionals who are not currently employed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Can you wrap up? Thank you.

[Lena Metlege Diab, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Anyone coming to Canada would not be admissible unless they passed the criminality check.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much. I'm sorry. The time is up.

I now go to the Liberals.

Ms. Chi, you have five minutes, please.

[Maggie Chi, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Ministers, thank you for coming today.

My first question is for Minister Diab.

To follow up on my colleague's line of questioning there, can you just clarify federal-provincial responsibility in terms of vetting and why it is important for the provinces instead of the federal government to go through that regulatory process to vet doctors?

[Lena Metlege Diab, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

If you're talking about the regulations for doctors and so on, I'll ask the health department to go through that, if you don't mind. Respectfully to you and the other colleagues on the committee who are asking questions, I'm the immigration minister. Obviously, I have a role to play, but I'm not the licensing body or whatever.

[Maggie Chi, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

That's fair.

[Lena Metlege Diab, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

If the health department could help me, I would appreciate that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

Mr. Orencsak, please go ahead.

[Greg Orencsak]

It is the provincial-territorial licensing bodies that would be responsible for the credentialling of physicians and other health professionals.

What we've been able to do to help with some of that is more on the data and information exchange. We've been able to provide funding for national registries—national registries of physicians, for example, that provincial-territorial regulators are participating in—which is enabling some of the information exchange about the individuals who are applying for a licence. It's ultimately up to the provincial-territorial regulators to approve those licences.

[Maggie Chi, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Thank you for the clarification.

My next question is for Minister Michel.

You made a reference to budget 2025 on health investments. The Canadian Medical Association called it a step forward in strengthening the foundation of our health care system. They welcomed the investments in infrastructure and workforce modernization, the very tools that the physicians we've been hearing from have been asking for. I just want to unpack those conversations a little bit on what that means for Canadians.

The first piece is the $5-billion investment in health infrastructure. This is a new fund, a new initiative, through the build Canada strong initiative, the largest investment we've seen in over a decade. How does this type of structured outcome and focused funding align with predictable and long-term investment to modernize Canada's health care infrastructure?

[Marjorie Michel, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

I think it's a start. I can tell you that all provinces and territories are looking to this funding very positively. We had a number of projects already ready to go, but they were lacking funding. We are going to move fast because provinces already had their needs. I think it's a first step.

I will say that it's $5 billion over three years, but who knows? The next budget will maybe come with new funding again. It will help in the long term. As you know, we have a lot of facilities that really need to be enhanced. When we are talking about capacity and training doctors, for example, we need more medical schools. It's an investment with sometimes big funding from provinces, but now, pairing it with federal dollars, it will help them move faster.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have one minute.

[Maggie Chi, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

My next question is about the $97 million targeted toward the foreign credential recognition fund. How important is this step for strengthening our health care system?

[Marjorie Michel, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

As you know, we heard a lot in this committee about the number of people who are already in and cannot get into the system. I am going to correct a little bit of what I understood from a previous question that was talking about people being here and not being real doctors or real nurses or whatever.

That's not the case. Sometimes maybe there are some cases that fall in the cracks, but a number of people are coming here from the health sector with some kind of experience in another country and they need more support to get into our own system. This funding is going to support colleges and some medical associations to train them to make sure those people have the right support to get the exam and get to the credentials.

I can tell you personally, this past weekend I was with the foundation of Haitian Canadian doctors' community. They are mentoring young people who come from there who were in the health system. They are training them to pass the exams and we have really good results.

I think—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Minister Michel.

[Marjorie Michel, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Not this funding...but now we have a number of people who will get the funding to support those kinds of initiatives.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

We are now going to move to a new round.

We will begin with Mr. Strauss from the Conservatives for five minutes, please.

[Matt Strauss, Conservative, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

It's nice to see Minister Michel again.

Minister Diab, welcome to the committee.

My questions are for Minister Diab. They're regarding the interim federal health program.

It's my understanding that the cost of this program has ballooned about 30% year over year to $900 million. This program covers asylum claimants. It is also my understanding that the number of asylum claimants covered by this program has increased to 440,000 from about 350,000 last year. I have some questions regarding this.

Do you anticipate that this number—the $900 million that we're spending on this program and the 440,000 asylum claimants—is going to go up next year?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Excuse me, I would like to clarify, Minister.

Let's be sure this relates to the study, Mr. Strauss, and it's not just an immigration question.

[Matt Strauss, Conservative, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Yes, this has to do with asylum claimants being covered. It's directly to do with immigration and health.