Madam Speaker, nurse practitioners began in northern Canada over 100 years ago as outpost nurses. In 1967, education programs in Canada began training midwives and outpost nurses at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Today, there are nurse practitioner programs across Canada, with over 7,100 nurse practitioners providing exceptional care to Canadians. There are advanced practice nurses who integrate clinical skills associated with nursing and medicine to assess, diagnose and manage patients.
MPs value our publicly funded health care system and support the ongoing commitment of our government to uphold this. In these extraordinary times, in a world pandemic, we must recognize them and the WHO designation of 2020 as the international Year of the Nurse and the Midwife.