I think there needs to be recognition that it takes money to grow a program. To grow a health cadre—to bring back a workforce that was eliminated for 100 years—is going to take investment and it's going to take more than four years or any change in parties. Twenty-eight years, as I said, is kind of a short period in terms of the health profession. We need continued commitment to investing in the growth of this profession so that we have people to deliver the babies who need to be delivered.
In addition to Tom's comments, I want to make an example of this year's list. We admit 30 students a year. We couldn't admit our students to our program this year, but Ryerson and McMaster agreed to admit the 30 students on Laurentian's behalf. Fifteen students will be going to Ryerson and 15 will be going to McMaster.
We did our selections for our offer list the same way we always do. We're mandated to look at indigenous, francophone and northern applicants first. Last year, 60% of our applicants came from this list of people. This year, I'm proud to say, 70% of the successful applicants to our program are indigenous, northern and francophone—21 out of 30. Ten of those successful applicants were francophone.
Since they only have a choice between McMaster and Ryerson, neither of which will be teaching the program in French, those 10 francophone applicants have to be contacted to find out if they are able to study in English. If they cannot study in English at a university level, they'll have to turn down the offer for the midwifery program.
When you say “long term”, this is already starting. This September, we're going to be training fewer francophone midwives. We also don't know whether our indigenous and northern applicants will be choosing McMaster or Ryerson. I do wonder how many of these students, from the 70% on our offer list, will actually end up registered at Ryerson or McMaster.