This is impacting access to effective and efficient healthcare, limiting labour mobility and increasing lost time and productivity across all sectors. As we struggle to train enough workers domestically, barriers to labour mobility in the healthcare sector are keeping skilled workers away. The fragmented and archaic foreign credential recognition processes across the country are leaving qualified newcomers working in areas outside of their expertise. We need a national strategy regarding accreditation barriers in the healthcare sector that addresses interprovincial and international qualifications.
The Peterborough and the Kawarthas Chamber of Commerce and Fredericton Chamber of Commerce have teamed up on a policy resolution submitted to the Canadian Chamber of Commerce (CCC) at the October convention, urging the federal government to take action on this issue. Policy resolutions are one way for Chambers to work together to create change. If approved by the CCC members, this resolution would become part of the CCC’s advocacy efforts for the next three years.
Systemic healthcare deficiencies across Canada are holding back our workforce and our economy.
The OurCare national survey showed an estimated 6.5 million Canadians are without a family doctor. In Ontario alone, the Ontario College of Family Physicians estimates 15 per cent of the population is without a family doctor and expects that to increase.
Workers who do not have access to primary healthcare through a family doctor are left to piece together solutions for their healthcare needs. The demands on hospitals and a lack of available workers have led to lengthy ER wait times, contributing to worse health outcomes, more time spent trying to access healthcare and more lost time in the workforce.
A shortage of accredited workers is also holding back private sector healthcare providers from meeting the needs of Canadians and supplementing the public system.
In 2020, a Statistics Canada report noted skilled newcomers are under-used in the healthcare sector with 47 per cent of them either unemployed or underemployed in non-healthcare jobs needing only a high school education.
The Government of Canada already provides funding to governments and organizations through the Foreign Credential Recognition Program (FCRP) to support foreign credential recognition in Canada. These other organizations may include regulatory bodies, national associations and credential assessment agencies. Every year, Canada’s Foreign Credential Recognition Program invests roughly $27.1 million through agreements with provinces and territories, regulatory bodies and other stakeholders to help support the labour market integration of skilled newcomers.
While these measures may help, this piecemeal approach will also further exacerbate provincial and territorial variance as programs and projects are implemented on a case-by-case basis. These investments also demonstrate that the federal government accepts that it has a role to play in credential recognition, despite most credentialling bodies being provincial in nature.
