Mr. Speaker, my colleague has asked an important question. One reason physicians do not want to go to rural areas is that it is difficult to get replacements, so they are on call literally 24/7 and cannot leave. As we know, every year physicians have to upgrade their skills. They have to have continuing medical education, because things change rapidly in the care of patients. Almost every three months, something new is going on. That is one of the problems. As well, they want to be able to send their children to university, and sometimes they want something close by, which is not always possible.
Some provinces are trying to use incentives to help physicians stay there. They are trying to get people to take over when they need to leave to continue their medical education, and they are trying to allow them to get support from tertiary care centres through telemedicine. A lot of that is happening, which is going to help people.
A lot of young people do not seem to want to go into medicine anymore, mainly because of the hours, the stress and the time to have interpersonal relationships with patients, which demands a lot of emotional strength and support. We are hearing that physicians are rapidly burning out.
I hope people who are listening to this debate will say that they want their kids to be physicians one day and maybe start bellying up to the bar to do that kind of thing.