Health Committee on Feb. 3rd, 2026

[Tracy Fisher]

There are several things. One is that we need to grow more of our own veterinarians. We are not graduating enough veterinarians to keep up with the demand.

Another is that we can encourage the immigration of veterinarians into Canada, get them certified into the system faster and reduce some of those barriers. The CVMA has a proposal to develop a national testing centre for foreign-trained graduates.

For those who don't know, foreign-trained graduates constitute an extra veterinary school in Canada as far as the numbers of people who join our workforce every year is concerned, so they're a really important part of our system.

Finally, we need supports for mental health and all of the things that prompt veterinarians to leave the workforce a bit too early. Those are really important things. I've been in this profession for nearly 30 years, but unfortunately, that's not true for some of my colleagues; they leave far too soon. If we keep pouring water into a leaky bucket, we'll never get to the end of it.

[Helena Konanz, Conservative, Similkameen—South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you for that.

We were studying human doctors and the lack of MDs in our previous study. That's throughout Canada, but we're really seeing it in rural communities, where we've had to close hospitals and emergency rooms constantly.

What we're talking about today is rural doctors, which I imagine many of them would be, because they're working on livestock. Is it particularly with veterinarians in the rural areas that we're having difficulty in addressing this issue?

[Tracy Fisher]

Yes, absolutely, and there are a number of reasons for that. Work, lifestyle and finances all play a part, but there are some roles for government.

One thing is that veterinarians in rural areas currently don't qualify for the student loan forgiveness program for rural professionals, so that would be helpful.

Among the vet schools and in the veterinary profession, there's a big push to start to select veterinarians entering school who have an interest in food, animal and rural medicine.

Those are all positives, but at the end of the day, you have a small workforce, and if you look at the life of a rural vet—which can be extraordinarily rewarding but involves very hard work and long hours—sometimes when there are other jobs available that maybe need fewer hours, and there are lots of them, they gravitate towards other areas of practice, which is unfortunate, because we really and truly do need people in rural areas.

[Helena Konanz, Conservative, Similkameen—South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you for that answer.

Dr. Weese, you mentioned that there's an AMR crisis and that antibiotics should be used as little as possible. How up to date would you say Canada's biosecurity monitoring is at present? Are there outdated methods or technologies that should be rethought in regulations?

[Scott Weese]

No, not necessarily from a regulation standpoint. Infection control and biosecurity are separate issues. Canada has quite robust biosecurity on farms to prevent things from accessing farms, especially foreign diseases and new diseases. That doesn't account for a lot of the diseases that are normally there that we have to control with antimicrobials, so they are two separate issues.

Testing is a challenge based on cost. It's always difficult to get testing done because the cost of the test may be much more than the cost of the animal, or the time frame may not be appropriate. Testing, whether that's testing in general or novel testing methods, is a very important control tool, as well as testing to identify disease processes so we know when to use and when not to use antimicrobials. There is definitely some ground to be made up there.

[Helena Konanz, Conservative, Similkameen—South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Okay. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

I will now go to Ms. Sidhu for the Liberals.

You have five minutes, please.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all of the witnesses for being with us today.

My first question will go to Dr. Nguyen.

Dr. Nguyen, most of your authored research focuses on host-pathogen interactions and resistance in respiratory infections. How can insights from molecular and animal model research help identify resistance patterns earlier, before they translate into severe human infections?

I would also like to talk about sepsis, which remains one of the most serious consequences of AMR. From a research perspective, where are the biggest diagnostic or therapeutic gaps when a resistant infection progresses to sepsis?

[Dao Nguyen]

I can speak from my perspective of research. What we're interested in—one of the topics—is the intersection of the microbe and the host. That's a very interesting paradigm that parallels, perhaps, some aspect of sepsis.

When we think of human infections and syndromes, these syndromes are often complicated to diagnose. First is understanding the basic science of where sepsis comes from or, for example in my case, something as simple as pneumonia. You would think that pneumonia is very straightforward, but as a clinical syndrome, it is very ambiguous. It actually leads to the overuse, most certainly, of antibiotics, because somebody who has a cough, an abnormal chest X-ray and a few other relatively non-specific symptoms is assumed to have a bacterial infection that we're going to treat with antibiotics.

The basic science is important to understand: What is a disease and how would we properly diagnose it? From there, the molecular level or the epidemiological level is about understanding what molecules are important in order to design the right diagnostic tools, to which we'll apply either the proper stewardship or the proper therapy.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Let's talk about the pan-Canadian action plan for AMR stewardship, which is described as “a system-wide approach that recognizes the role of patients, prescribers, producers and the public”. What role can public education play in the fight against AMR?

How knowledgeable are Canadians? Do you think they are knowledgeable? If there's public awareness, what kind of public education do you think is going to be needed?

[Dao Nguyen]

Is this a question for me?

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Yes.

[Dao Nguyen]

My experience has been that the general public is very ill-informed with regard to what AMR is and what the implications are. Something as basic as the fact that AMR is about a microbe and not the host and it's not something that they carry.... I think that level of fundamental understanding is often lacking.

I think the general public's understanding and behaviour are critical, particularly at the level of stewardship. Prescribing behaviour among physicians is partly driven by patient expectations. If a patient comes in and asks for an antibiotic, it makes it that much harder for a physician to say no. Educate the public on the conditions, on what they can do to prevent the emergence of resistance and on their own part to play in stewardship interventions.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

My last question is for you, Dr. Nguyen.

Are there any new emerging technologies, like AI or quantum computing, that can help advance research in antimicrobial resistance?

[Dao Nguyen]

Absolutely. The uses are numerous, such as in the world of drug discovery, which is already well under way. The use of genomic technology for a variety of diagnostic or surveillance methodology would really accelerate that. I think AI would be a fantastic tool to have in our armamentarium, which is currently not yet available.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

I now go to another round. It's a five-minute round.

Mr. Mazier.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Riding Mountain, MB]

Thank you, Chair.

Dr. Brockhoff, do you believe that agriculture has been mis-characterized in the antimicrobial resistance discussion?

[Egan Brockhoff]

I believe agriculture is an easy target. A number of the witnesses earlier talked about the one health concept. One health doesn't just mean medicine. It has to mean veterinary medicine. It has to mean the environment.

Yes, we are an easy target. We have lots of animals. We have lots of biomass and we're front and centre.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Riding Mountain, MB]

What key points or corrections do you think are important for the committee to clearly reflect in its report, given Canada's agriculture industry?

[Egan Brockhoff]

There are some key things today. We don't use antimicrobials for growth promotion. That has to be shared. People should know that. We are all working in an antimicrobial stewardship framework. We're all working within the pan-Canadian action plan and we are all working to implement the pan-Canadian action plan into our programs. Our producers participate in these programs. They're audited in these programs. We need to tell people that.

People need to be aware that we are participating in the Public Health Agency's CIPARS program. We are monitoring for resistance. We're not seeing issues. We should be telling people about that. We are using the use data that's generated by CIPARS to help create education opportunities, to help work with our veterinarians, to help work with our nutritionists, to help work with our surveillance and intelligence bodies and to ask for and promote new products.

We have a great story to tell, but we're not telling it.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Riding Mountain, MB]

Thank you.

Dr. Fisher, is Health Canada's approval process for drugs impacting the use of antimicrobials?

[Tracy Fisher]

The changes would definitely have a big impact on how we would use antimicrobials and on how we select. Veterinarians are required to use, first, antimicrobials of a lower importance to human medicine. If we're going to use antimicrobials of a higher importance, then we definitely need good evidence to support that. We use those very cautiously.

The proposed changes would definitely hamper the treatment of a number of really common diseases and unfortunately could result in the removal of some of the things we use more commonly and are of less importance to human medicine. The removal of them from the market would leave us with not a whole lot of choices. It is, honestly, pretty devastating to look at that future.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Riding Mountain, MB]

I have a follow-up to that. When Health Canada reclassifies veterinary drugs, do you believe the agricultural context of on-farm realities is being accurately assessed?

[Tracy Fisher]

No, I don't. I think sometimes there is a miscategorization of that industry, as Dr. Brockhoff has insinuated. I think there's an idea out there that we use these drugs wantonly, without a whole lot of thought or consideration, but that is simply not the case. They are used very cautiously.

Most producers I know of do everything in their power to prevent animal disease in the first place. They would love to have access to more vaccines and alternatives to antimicrobials. When they do use these drugs, they do so with a very precautionary principle and in concert with their veterinarian.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Riding Mountain, MB]

What risks arise when agriculture is not adequately considered?