Evidence of meeting #5 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was process.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Rob Walsh  Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons
Christine Nielsen  Executive Director, Canadian Society for Medical Laboratory Science
Jim McKee  Executive Director, Royal Architectural Institute of Canada
Jill McCaw  Coordinator, Integration Project, Royal Architectural Institute of Canada
Charles Shields  Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Association of Medical Radiation Technologists
Giulia Nastase  Manager, Special Projects, Canadian Association of Medical Radiation Technologists

5:20 p.m.

Executive Director, Royal Architectural Institute of Canada

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.

5:20 p.m.

Liberal

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?

5:20 p.m.

Executive Director, Canadian Society for Medical Laboratory Science

5:20 p.m.

Liberal

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?

5:20 p.m.

Executive Director, Canadian Society for Medical Laboratory Science

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.

5:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Ed Komarnicki

Mr. Shields.

5:20 p.m.

Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Association of Medical Radiation Technologists

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.

5:25 p.m.

Executive Director, Royal Architectural Institute of Canada

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.

5:25 p.m.

Liberal

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?

5:25 p.m.

Executive Director, Canadian Society for Medical Laboratory Science

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.

5:25 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Ed Komarnicki

Thank you.

Mr. Shields, do you want to comment?

5:25 p.m.

Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Association of Medical Radiation Technologists

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.

5:25 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Ed Komarnicki

Mr. McKee, do you have a comment?

5:25 p.m.

Executive Director, Royal Architectural Institute of Canada

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.

5:25 p.m.

Conservative

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.