In the midwifery program at all three sites, right from the beginning in 1993, we have felt that it was important to ensure that indigenous applicants had an opportunity to have a space within the program.
At Laurentian, we have generally had a cohort of indigenous students in every year of the intake of our program. We attempt to not only support what it is that they feel they need from us to prepare them for practice in their communities, but we also want the other students who will be practising in northern Ontario, likely with at least some indigenous clients, and some practices will have high proportions of indigenous clients, to have an understanding so that each client doesn't have to try to interpret what it means to be indigenous to every midwife that she encounters in her health care.
Ideally, of course, we would like for our indigenous students to have an opportunity to have all their placements in indigenous practices and we do have procedures set up in our placement process to at least give them the first opportunity to get those placements when they are available.
We also know that the times are changing and it is time for there to be indigenous schools of midwifery. We know there is federal funding being put in place through FNIHB for the students to be able to create a school that is indigenous.
One of the things that may happen with a new northern school of midwifery is that instead of just re-creating the northern site of the consortium, perhaps we may have a new consortium that's something similar to what we have, but our partners might be maybe two or three indigenous schools of midwifery in northern Ontario. Maybe our partners will be with other places where francophone students want to study.
I'm getting off the indigenous topic here.