Mr. Speaker, I am glad that my colleague asked that question. Under a former Liberal government, it was my duty to look at the barriers that stood in the way of people who trained in foreign countries coming here to practise medicine.
Fortunately, or unfortunately in some cases, it is out of our hands, as the colleges set the criteria for how a physician is trained and what training is needed. First, a person would have to pass the board exams when coming to this country, so that the college can verify they are fit to practise medicine here.
There is also the issue of speaking the language well. Being a physician does not mean just saying hello and how are you in English or French and nothing else. The intricacy of the relationship between the patient and the physician requires good language skills. Under that Liberal government, this was something we had put money into. I understand that money is still there. There was over $20 million for what we call “advanced language training”.
Of course, people also need to find a practice here. Therefore, we were looking at how we could get them into clinics where they could train for about four months, to understand how Canadians practise medicine and what the ethics and rules are. This is a very important thing.