Mr. Chair, through you to Mr. Brown, if I had all the answers, I probably wouldn't be sitting here right now, but the questions you raise are germane and I shall try to at least offer some things we're looking at and possible solutions.
In relation to the foreign graduate situation, it is very complex, but we think that even though there are a large number of foreign graduates in the country, or foreign-trained physicians, not all of whom would qualify under any circumstances from some areas to ever practice, there is a substantial number above the current ones who could.
I think this is an area the federal government could look at. If we can get some federal funding, and maybe some capacity within the system, the sort of thing my colleague here referred to, then I think we could get more than 400 per year, fully trained and qualified in the short term, to get in the system, to help areas like your own.
As far as your own individual recruitment and retention issue is concerned, one of the things you might look at in relation to your discussions with the medical school is maybe talk about having a campus in Barrie, like they do in Prince George in B.C. and other areas. My daughter just trained in Newfoundland, and some of the best training--and this was recognized at her graduation--was in rural and remote areas that are part of the Memorial campus. They are now noticing, in some of the literature that's recently been reported about the province of Newfoundland, that they are now getting more applicants, more medical students, and more trainees from rural and remote areas of Newfoundland who are going to medical school, not only in Newfoundland but they are going back to those areas.
Maybe a campus in Barrie might be something you could look at, with a welcome mat and the sorts of incentives you were talking about.
As far as the net losses are concerned, again I made reference in a previous question to the fact that we think we may be on the cusp of reversing this. We don't know why. It may be economic and demographic, but we think there's a real possibility there, that there are a number of full-time, active physicians in the United States, more than 1,000 of whom have kept their licences in Canada, who we could entice back on the short term.
So in addition to the foreign graduates, there are the Canadians in the United States, and then there is another group, the number of which we're not too sure about, who are actually training outside of Canada, who we think we'd like to get back in. A very large number of students who are Canadians trained in the Caribbean and Ireland. So we're looking at that as well.
These are some of the solutions we're actively looking at, but the short answer might be, maybe you need a campus in Barrie for one of your medical schools.