Evidence of meeting #19 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was education.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
I will rephrase the question. In your presentation, you spoke of people from lesser-developed countries or countries with lower education levels. You stated that, in the health field, we should not bring these people to Canada to provide nursing care.
Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Healthcare Association
Could you repeat that?
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
That is all right. I will reword my question again. Let us start over. My question is about globalization. How would you go about looking for people abroad who wish to come to Canada to work in the health services area?
Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Healthcare Association
We are opposed to recruiting professionals from other countries. That is a problem for me. Perhaps something in my presentation was not written properly or I did not express myself well.
I am sorry. I spent the last nine years in Toronto and I have only been here one week. I need to practice my French.
In Canada, we need to find ways to be self-sufficient. We do not wish to recruit health professionals from other countries. If I understood your question, you thought that we would recommend the opposite of what I wanted to say.
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
What do you think of the doctors and nurses who are already here in Canada, but who cannot practice medicine?
Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Healthcare Association
That is another matter. I started to answer Mr. Brison. Programs were established, five to seven years ago, for doctors and nurses, to reduce the obstacles preventing them from practising here in Canada. I do not know if you are aware of all the details of these programs. If you are not, we could send them to you.
Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Healthcare Association
The second step is to add five professions to this initiative: physiotherapists, pharmacists, occupational therapists, lab technicians and radiology technicians.
That is beginning to happen with the seven professions. We believe that the problem lies in providing the same opportunities to other professions in order to improve the process which affects professionals from other countries. That is just beginning but, as usual, it is not enough.
I would like to send you some links from our website so you can learn more about these programs.
I am sorry for having misunderstood the question.
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
Mr. Turk, you testified before the House Standing Committee on Finance in August 2007. You made six recommendations. Of these six recommendations made in 2007, which ones did the government implement?
Executive Director, Canadian Association of University Teachers
A principal initiative in the last budget was to increase the funding in the Canada social transfer. They gave the impression that it was dedicated funding for post-secondary education, and in fact it wasn't. It's up to the provinces to spend it or not. There's been no movement toward the kind of Canada post-secondary education act that we had called for.
There has been increased funding for research, although the social sciences and humanities continue to be underfunded relative to the natural sciences and health sciences, which is a concern. More than half of all the faculty in this country teach and more than half of all the students study the humanities and social sciences, yet a much smaller proportion of funding goes into research in those areas. That's partly a result of the emphasis, as I've tried to indicate in my presentation, on a narrow version of innovation and commercialization, without recognizing the broader social and commercial values we get from research in the humanities and social sciences.
In terms of their initiatives, it's primarily been the increase in funding in the Canadian social transfer and more money for research.
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
Mr. Couture, you also made recommendations to the committee. Earlier, you suggested that we should have the same rules. You also spoke about trade with the European Union. Could you elaborate?
President, Réseau des ingénieurs du Québec
The idea is to foster... We know that globalization is an inescapable reality and that its consequences are real. Engineers are feeling its effects right now. They are real.
There is fierce competition from developing countries. Wages and environmental standards are often not the same as in Canada. We favour trade with countries such as those in the European Union because we want to deal with countries that have conditions...
President, Réseau des ingénieurs du Québec
...that are like ours so that trade and working conditions are similar.
Conservative
Conservative
Colin Carrie Conservative Oshawa, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Dr. Gehrke, I want to talk about health care, because it's probably one of the most important issues in Oshawa, where I come from. I think everybody on the committee would recognize the importance of the government policy to ensure equal access and utilization of our health care system and the professionals who are in it.
You talked a little bit about barriers to care. Do you have any specific examples where there have been barriers to care due to federal government red tape, or regulatory issues, or policy issues that you could tell the committee about?
President, Canadian Chiropractic Association
Thank you for your question.
A classic example, just very recently, comes to mind that I can highlight.
We have a chiropractic doctor, Dr. Tondreau, who just got back from a tour of duty in Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, of course, they work under conditions I can't imagine, but certainly Dr. Tondreau recognized that the amount of hardware these folks pack, the cramped conditions in which they live, the travelling arrangements, these kinds of things that facilitate their tour of duty have significant implications on their health, musculoskeletal health particularly. He also indicates that about 80% of the kinds of conditions represented from soldiers in Afghanistan are because of musculoskeletal conditions.
He wanted to volunteer his services, actually, to help out, not to be paid for that and after regular duties, but he wanted to volunteer his services to treat his colleagues. Due to military red tape, he wasn't permitted to do so. He's a recognized health care practitioner in a country where all ten provinces recognize licensure and are regulated, yet he is not permitted to look after his colleagues in the profession in which he was educated to do so. It just doesn't seem right.
Conservative
Colin Carrie Conservative Oshawa, ON
Are there any other examples of access to care?
Dr. Smith, do you have some, or Mr. Tucker?
President, Canadian Dental Association
Essentially, in terms of federal government barriers, there aren't. The issue is more, for example, in plan design of a dental plan, and there are some real dichotomies there. For example, the first nations communities plan would be different from what you as members of Parliament would have. So a first nations individual may not be able to access the same standard of care or the same quality of care.
In terms of dentistry, more of those issues are germane to the argument than actual physical barriers. In fact, the federal government has done a lot to make sure that we have portability across Canada and that we get the provinces together. I think that's a fairer statement.
Director, Government and Interprofessional Relations, Canadian Chiropractic Association
Yes, there is one significant area that Ms. Fralick mentioned and Dr. Smith refers to—that is, first nations people. There was a time in Canada when the federal purse was open to support chiropractic care for first nations people, and through various needs for efficiency that has been closed up, pretty well, except for parts of Ontario. So folks in first nations don't have access to this kind of care.
We have an example where the profession itself funds such care in Anishnawbe Health Toronto. It's a clinic that deals with first nations street people in downtown Toronto, where all the professions involved—dentists, medical doctors, naturopaths, spirit healers, and the like—work together in harmony to deliver very important care. We'd love to see that model extended. There, the federal government can become involved in supporting that kind of care across the country, to all first nations peoples.
Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Healthcare Association
I always have something to say, but on that specific point I think I would broaden the discussion to mention the wait times. We all hear so much about those. Moving forward, again, the federal-provincial issue is so difficult, but this is an area where the federal government can have some influence.
The wait times program, as conceived a few years ago, was and still is an excellent program. We are seeing results and a great deal of optimism in certain areas. But there are two problems. One is that the focus of those wait times was so specific it neglected other critical areas. The example I will give you is joint replacements. As one of the five conditions, surgery was covered but post-rehabilitation was not included in the package.
So there is this concern that, yes, a Canadian will get their joint replacement surgery, but without, say, proper care in advance or physiotherapy afterwards, they're going to be back in the queue. We need to take a look at the breadth of what is included in those five wait times.
The second issue, of course, is that in those few years when we focused on these fives areas, other conditions created their own wait lists. It's time to really step back and evaluate and determine where we go next with the wait times issue.
