I will try to answer that question. I'm a health care professional. That is the other hat I wear. In fact, I run a mental health clinic.
In my opinion, the fact that we are located close to Quebec has been an advantage in the past, because health care professionals in Ontario were better paid than those in the Outaouais, for example.
So when the Hôpital Montfort and community organizations were looking for French-speaking health care professionals to staff certain positions, as did my organization, which also serves the francophone population, it was easier to recruit these professionals. The situation has now stabilized in the Outaouais. Fewer health care professionals are leaving Quebec to go to Ontario, but Quebec is experiencing a shortage of these individuals as well. So it has become more difficult.
The fact that Eastern Ontario is located close to the United States has not been a factor. The issue is more national in scope. The pay and benefits and working conditions of health care professionals have not always been good. That caused an exodus of these people to the United States. That did not happen just in Ontario. Human resources staff in institutions such as hospitals work very hard to improve the benefits and working conditions of health care professionals to prevent this exodus to the United States.
In addition, our universities and colleges, throughout the country, not just in Ontario, wake up to the fact that decisions made 5 or 10 years ago about recruitment or about the number of available positions in universities and colleges for future health care professionals were really out-of-date. We have now corrected this situation. So we should be seeing more health care professionals, and the fact that we have better working conditions for them now will help correct the situation further. However, it was not unique to Eastern Ontario.