Human Resources Committee on June 1st, 2006

[Corinne Prince-St-Amand]

Oh, to the individual. I think it's in the--

[Karen Jackson]

Are you asking whether we know how much an individual will be charged to take the exam?

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

Yes.

[Corinne Prince-St-Amand]

I believe it's in the $1,000 range, but it does vary. I would like to double-check my answer on that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

We need to move on to motions and those things.

Mr. Storseth, did you have one quick question? You're the only one around this table who hasn't had a chance to question the witnesses.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Yes. Thank you, sir.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Ask a quick one, and then we'll move into our motions, as previously discussed.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

But I had a great lead-up to the question. All right, I'll just skip right to the question.

Not only do we create barriers with foreign accreditation, as Mr. Brown has stated, but we also have barriers within the country and the provinces themselves with internal accreditation.

I was wondering if there have been any studies or any work done on flowing some of this out so that a doctor in Manitoba can go and work in Alberta without having to wait three, four, or five months before he can go there, or an insurance agent can.... Has there been any work done on that?

[Karen Jackson]

There has. I mentioned previously the arrangements of the Agreement on Internal Trade, which is trying to address those issues. Actually, a survey done in 2005 looked precisely at what kinds of problems exist today.

Are there a couple of comments you'd want to add to what we found?

[Corinne Prince-St-Amand]

As Karen mentioned earlier, what it found was that even today, 35% of individuals who are Canadian-trained were having difficulties obtaining licensure when they moved from one jurisdiction to another. That statistic increased to 50%--one in two--for those who were foreign-trained.

Changes in particular occupations from province to province occur for many reasons. The Province of Ontario has recently changed educational requirements for nurses, so this has required the regulatory bodies for the three nursing professions to adjust. It requires that a mutual recognition agreement currently in place with many of the provinces be updated.

Because of the changes provincially in Ontario for nurses, will Alberta or Quebec continue to accept equivalencies for nurses? Can they somehow look at equivalencies and determine that, yes, they're still similar enough to ensure that the high standards each province wants to maintain are upheld?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Mr. Storseth, thank you very much. I also want to thank the witnesses for coming out today.

I have a couple of quick points before you go.

Mr. Martin, spaces and availabilities in institutions would probably make for some good witnesses as we move forward on our study to find out what we can do about spots.

You talked about the differences in access to education, and you have some data on urban and rural. Could you make that available to the committee at some point? It would probably be an interesting set of statistics and data. That would be great.

I wanted to talk a bit about productivity, but we're out of time, so I'll defer it to another day.

We want to thank you very much for taking the time to enlighten us a little bit more about some of the issues that revolve around mobility, foreign credentials, and skills shortages, and all these things. Thank you very much again for taking time out to be with us this morning.

[Karen Jackson]

Thank you for having us. We will indeed follow up and make sure we get you the information you're asking for.

Thank you. Merci beaucoup.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

Could I ask the MPs to look at the packages in front of them? We have a couple of motions by Mr. Martin in front of us. If we could flip to the notice of motions on the first page, Mr. Martin seeks unanimous consent to replace with this motion the one for which he gave notice on May 12, 2006.

The motion reads:

Given the 2006 Budget spending for the Social Economy Initiative (SEI) and its potential to help establish new community businesses that can be self-sufficient, e.g. co-ops, and social enterprises, that the Committee devote one meeting to hear from officials from the government's Social Economy Initiative, including stakeholders currently engaged in the SEI, with a view to determining the immediate and long-term plans for the SEI.

Do we have any discussion?

Madame.

[France Bonsant, Bloc, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

You asked for unanimous consent. Wouldn't it be better to put this matter to a vote to see if everybody agrees?

We're asking you to put the question.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

We're asking for unanimous consent to replace the motion with this one.

[France Bonsant, Bloc, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

I'm sorry. Thank you very much, Mr. Regan.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

You're welcome.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

So the question is, do we have unanimous consent to replace the existing motion with that?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Okay, so now that we have unanimous consent, we'll have some discussion on the motion. Is there any discussion on the motion, or are we prepared to move forward with the vote?

All right, then I'll call the question.

(Motion agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

We have one more motion to deal with, as well.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

Mr. Chairman, I talked to Mr. Martin about a friendly amendment to take out “recommend” and put in “study the impact of the government guarantee”, and to remove the last part, “and that the Chair of the Committee report this motion to the House” after the word “Parliament”, because it won't be this motion to the House that we're reporting; it'll be the friendly amendment. So just cross off, “and that the Chair of the Committee report this motion...”.

So it will be “that the Committee study the impact of the government guarantee”, or “...a guarantee to all seniors”.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Okay, and then strike off--

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

It is after the word “Parliament”. It would be a different--

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

And report annually to Parliament.

Yes, Mr. Martin.