Mr. Speaker, the issue of the shortage of family physicians is extremely important. This government is committed, along with the wait time guarantee, to concurrently work on increasing the capacity of our universities to graduate more doctors. We will work with the provinces to ensure that happens because education is a provincial responsibility.
We will also work with the colleges of family physicians in each province to facilitate the integration of international medical graduates. There are many people in this country who have the skills or are very close to having the skills necessary to practise medicine in Canada. There are also a substantial number of Canadian born, foreign trained medical graduates. We will help facilitate their integration.
There is another issue when training doctors. Not only do we have to increase the medical school spots, but also the residency spots. In order to become a doctor, students need to spend a certain amount of time in residency positions. There needs to be an increased capacity there as well. We are looking at creative ways to do that in urban and rural areas and in the north to ensure that Canadians will get in time the care and the doctors needed.
The 13 years of Liberal mismanagement and the deliberate cut of doctors graduating from universities during the Liberals' time in office caused a major problem which will take time to fix.