In terms of rural doctors, I think part of the biggest issue is conveyed by the metaphor that when the grass turns brown in the suburbs, the drought in the country tends to be ignored, even though it gets worse. As we've had a larger Canadian shortage of doctors overall, the focus on the shortage in the rural areas has become less apparent. That's why it's really important for the committee to focus on the worsening shortage of rural doctors.
The number of Canadian medical students trained reached a low of 1,500. It's now back up to 2,400, but we need to continue to increase that number. We need to make sure the focus on that number continues to one of getting them right out to the country. Admit more students from the country, do more of their training in country locations, and provide support to the physicians and communities who are doing that in a bidirectional way, working with the universities. So decentralizing as much as possible of our training is important, and going beyond the Kitcheners and Windsors to the small communities is vital.
That's why we need champions like Karl Stobbe. We need someone like him in each medical school across the country to lead that charge, because it's maintaining that focus that's going to be absolutely vital.