Mr. Speaker, it is with great regret that I follow the member for St. Boniface. I would have preferred to speak before him. He has certainly given a very passionate and powerful articulation of support for my colleague for Winnipeg North.
In my own modest way I would also like to stand and give my own support to this member's motion. I have two personal situations I would like to put before the House with regard to this particular issue.
I worked previously in the field of employment equity with the Ontario universities before coming to the House as a parliamentarian. I would like to congratulate the member on this motion because he addresses something of real concern to the academic communities in this country. By addressing these concerns we will realize more equitable employment practices in our universities.
Often foreign credentials are rejected not on the basis of real difference in academic standards but have more to do with the perceptions that are based on stereotypes and lack of information.
The member for Winnipeg North has truly recognized an opportunity to provide all Canadians, those who have been here for a long time or those who are new to this country, the ability to fully contribute all of their skills to Canadian society.
The member has also identified another serious problem which is portability within this country. I draw an example from my own family to the attention of the House. My sister was a dental hygienist in Ontario. She moved to Alberta and had to go through a recertification and testing process. If the member opposite were concerned about bureaucracy and all of this I would suggest this is a real case of bureaucracy and wasted resources for my sister to have to go through this. As well, there was a considerable level of stress.
I would also like to point out, as my hon. colleague on this side of the House has already done, there were a number of things ignored by the member opposite in terms of some of his remarks. A lot of professions and trades have standard practices and there are no problems with portability across this country for accreditation.
With new Canadians coming to this country, particularly in the medical profession, he said they have to pass stringent medical tests. I agree with him. We want to ensure that we have capable and skilled individuals practising medicine in this country. However, in many cases newcomers to this country are denied the opportunity to even take these exams.
If the member opposite has read any newspapers in recent months he would realize that the federal and provincial governments are moving to harmonization on many different fronts. This is just one example of how we can work together co-operatively in this country.
I mentioned bureaucracy. Let us talk about 11 kinds of bureaucracy in this country. We have to challenge those kinds of overlap and duplication.
The costs. There is a cost to our society and to human talent in that they have to continually go through these things if they choose to move to another province.
We had an idea in the red book which I hope this government will continue to act on called the national apprenticeship program. This was lauded by industry and a number of people in my riding. I campaigned on this. If we take a look at a country like Germany, one of the reasons it is so strong industrially is because it has a very strong national apprenticeship program.
The process this government had proposed was to have these standards co-developed by industry, government and the educational sector. Again I would like to say that I fully support this member's motion. I thank him for bringing this very important issue to the attention of the House.