Human Resources Committee on Oct. 18th, 2011

[Jim McKee]

Assessing credentials and competencies is a labour-intensive process, and as we move through the project, the regulators are working on the business model. The ultimate objective is to work on a cost-recovery basis; for it to be sustainable, it will have to be.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

One thing the officials talked about when they were in the week before last was reciprocal agreements. They talked specifically about the dentists. In the U.S. and Canada, the societies have reciprocal agreements in place, and it really expedites the whole process. Do you have reciprocal agreements in place?

[Christine Nielsen]

No.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

You don't. Are you pursuing them, or is there any talk in the organization about maybe pursuing them?

[Christine Nielsen]

From our perspective, the Canadian practice is so different from others globally. There's a good match with three of the disciplines, but not with the full complement in Canada, and we don't have a subject exam. It may be feasible with one jurisdiction, and that would be the Philippines--or the United Arab Emirates.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Mr. Shields.

[Charles Shields]

I would say that CAMRT did have reciprocity with several countries at one point, but then as education requirements for entry to practice began to diverge, we had to drop those. We're getting close to some reciprocity discussions that aren't full reciprocity, which we might be able to have, to speed up the assessment process for people from some countries. But it's not something we've been able to look at in the same way that it existed at one point.

[Jim McKee]

Canada's regulators have had a mutual recognition agreement for some time with the United States, and have one at pilot stage with the Mexican regulator. They've pursued those only where the education, experience, and exam requirements are a very close match with the criteria in place here.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

You talked about a couple of regional programs as well that didn't have success, that weren't sustainable. Could you elaborate on the reasons why?

[Christine Nielsen]

The best model I can give you is the situation that happened in Alberta. The Northern Alberta Institute of Technology received pilot funding about five years ago. The costs it estimated to sustain the program would have been $82,000 per student. So NAIT didn't pick it up, the ministry of health didn't pick it up, and the ministry of education didn't pick it up.

Bridging programs are very costly in the beginning, during the development phase. They start to become a little more cost conscious around year three or four, but most of them don't live that long. They start, they're great, they improve the outcomes on exam and integration into the workplace--addressing key important elements like Canadian context and language proficiency--and then they close because nobody can afford an $82,000 tuition bill when my people only make $50,000 per year.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you.

Mr. Shields, do you want to comment?

[Charles Shields]

Thank you.

I'd like to follow up on that because that applies directly to one of the recommendations we made. That is to provide some sort of scholarship assistance to the internationally educated health professionals themselves to enable them to apply that to whatever bridging program they may want to attend.

Sustainability of programs has been a very big problem in our profession as well. We think it could be assisted by the existence of a pool of funds that internationally educated persons could access as they prepare themselves for professional practice.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Mr. McKee, do you have a comment?

[Jim McKee]

Quickly, I would say that the challenges are the same, and some form of assistance for foreign candidates could be helpful. One component of the program we are pursuing has been to provide a variety of courses through the RAIC Centre for Architecture at Athabasca University, a distance university predicated on people taking courses part time, which suits the realities of people coming to Canada as immigrants. That way they can acquire the upgrades required on a schedule that is suited to the realities of their lives.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

This is probably a good place for us to adjourn.

I want to thank you very much for your presentations. If there's anything else you'd like to add, you're certainly welcome to direct that to the clerk.

Thank you. We'll adjourn.