A Montreal doctor performs a procedure. Federal data suggest Canada will be short some 44,000 doctors, including over 30,000 family doctors and general practitioners, by 2028. (Ryan Remiorz/Canadian Press)
Canada has an acute shortage of doctors — a staffing crisis that is expected to get much worse in the years ahead as the number of residency positions on offer fails to keep up with rapid population growth.
Despite those challenges, roughly 1,000 Canadian doctors who went to school abroad are turned away every year because they can’t get residency spots in Canada, according to a CBC News review of medical school data. Physicians are required to go through a residency in order to be licensed to practice.
Canadian doctors who want to come home to work are routinely told it’s not possible because resources are limited and there are only so many residency positions to go around.
But the medical schools that run residency programs still find room for foreign nationals from countries like Oman, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia — people who frequently have no intention of staying here to work over the long term.
All of this is done with Ottawa’s blessing. The federal government has exempted medical schools from immigration laws that require Canadians get priority for a job.
Critics maintain that dismantling the foreign “visa trainee” program — which gives several hundred residency spots to non-Canadians — would free up positions so more homegrown doctors can work here in Canada and help chip away at the physician deficit.
In the current academic year, 1,810 Canadian international medical graduates (IMGs) applied for a residency, according to data from the Canadian Resident Matching Service (CaRMS). They include doctors who went to medical school in countries like Australia, Ireland and the United Kingdom.
Because Canadian medical schools privilege their own graduates and strictly enforce a quota on IMGs, only 370 of them were actually placed with residencies to complete the required post-graduate training.
The result is a massive brain drain, as many qualified Canadian physicians are forced to go to the U.S. — a country where residency positions are more readily available.
Dr. Joshua Ramjist is originally from Pickering, Ont.
He went to medical school at St. George’s University in Grenada, a small island nation in the Caribbean.
Anxiety set in when he tried to come home and practise.
“There were definitely a few sleepless nights and a little bit of uncertainty,” Ramjist told CBC News.
“There is a tremendous pool of international medical graduates who are talented, who are dedicated, who want to take care of their fellow Canadians.”
Pickering, Ont. native Dr. Joshua Ramjist went to medical school in the Caribbean. He’s become an advocate for other international medical graduates (IMGs) who are struggling to get a residency in Canada. More than 1,000 Canadian doctors who went to school abroad are turned away every year. (Supplied by Dr. Joshua Ramjist)
Ramjist secured a coveted residency and now works as a pediatric surgeon at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.
But the bruising experience has made him an advocate for other would-be residents who are trying to navigate the labyrinthian system.
“It diminishes the pipeline. We just won’t see people becoming doctors. And that’s dangerous — we need physicians. We need to reduce barriers to tap into that internationally trained talent,” he said.
Canada is losing out on hundreds of qualified doctors each year. Here’s why
Canada is losing out on hundreds of qualified Canadian doctors trained abroad who can’t practice because they find it difficult to get residencies here due to a combination of red tape and bias.
Federal data suggest Canada will be short some 44,000 doctors, including more than 30,000 family doctors and general practitioners, by 2028.
While Canada is cutting loose some native-born and naturalized doctors who went to medical school overseas, hundreds of foreign trainees are routinely admitted to residencies here, despite an apparent scarcity of resources. Saudi Arabians make up the largest single national group among foreign residents.
And the number of these foreign trainees is increasing.
In 2019, the year before COVID hit, 87 foreign trainees started the first year of a residency position in Canada, according to data from the Canadian Post-MD Education Registry (CAPER), the body that tracks IMG data.
In 2022, 148 did the same — a 70 per cent increase in just three years’ time.
There were 727 foreign trainees in medical residencies in Canada last year, according to CAPER.
Meanwhile, the number of Canadian doctors trained abroad who were admitted to residencies here remained static over the same time period.
In 2019, 326 IMGs got a residency position in Canada, according to CaRMS.
In 2022, 331 IMGs were matched with one of these highly coveted entry-level jobs — a 1.5 per cent increase.
Typically, foreign trainees are contractually required to go home when their residency is over. The Saudi government and the state-owned oil company Saudi Aramco — two of the entities that pay the way for some visa trainees — demand they leave Canada once their residencies are complete.
That means precious Canadian residency spots are wasted, critics maintain.
These foreign residents are not being permanently deployed to physician-starved rural and remote areas or hanging their shingles in a province like Nova Scotia — where 142,000 people, roughly 14 per cent of the population, are on a waiting list for a family doctor.
IMGs, by comparison, are Canadian citizens or permanent residents who generally want to live and work in the country they call home.
The Society for Canadians Studying Medicine Abroad (SOCASMA), an advocacy group that fights for the rights of IMGs, wants to dismantle the regime.
“We’re in a dire doctor shortage and there are literally thousands of Canadians who are not only prepared but also willing and qualified and desperate to do the job they were trained to do. But they are sidelined by their own government in favour of people who come from these oil-rich countries,” Rosemary Pawliuk, the group’s president, told CBC News.
“Thousands of Canadians are dying every year because of delayed access to health care,” she added, citing a Deloitte study. “And we’re training foreigners who take away spaces from Canadians who want to be doctors.”
Rosemary Pawliuk, the president of the Society for Canadians Studying Medicine Abroad, says it’s unfair that Canada’s limited residency spots are going to foreign nationals who won’t practise here long term. (Martin Diotte/CBC News)
In 2010, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) implemented a policy, Bulletin 230, that exempted Canadian medical schools from conducting labour market impact assessments (LMIA).
Under federal law, jobs and training opportunities are supposed to go to Canadian citizens or permanent residents. An employer is only permitted to bring in a foreign national if it can’t find a Canadian to do the work.
By dropping the LMIA requirement, the federal government freed medical schools from being compelled to prove no Canadian is available to fill a residency position — even though more than 1,000 Canadian doctors are locked out of the residency system ever year.
Saudi doctors work at a hospital in Riyadh. There were 727 foreign trainees in medical residencies in Canada last year, according to health care data. (Sultan Al Fahed/Reuters)
These foreign nationals have benefactors that pay much more for medical residencies than the sums offered by provincial governments for Canadian residents.
That explains why the current system continues, Pawliuk said: foreign trainees are a cash cow for the medical schools that administer the residency program.
Not only do Saudi interests pay more, they also cover the salaries of some of the teaching staff, she said.
“Canadians trained abroad get very poor and limited options and they are subject to a quota. These foreign nationals can just buy their way in,” she said. “It’s all about the money. Money talks.
“We need to revoke Bulletin 230 so foreigners can only come if there isn’t a Canadian or permanent resident to fill those jobs. Until then, there are thousands of Canadian doctors who are sitting unlicensed.”
The Association of Facilities of Medicine of Canada did not respond to CBC’s request for comment.
Ivy Lynn Bourgeault is an expert on health care human resources and a professor at the University of Ottawa.
She’s studied the visa trainee issue and has found that Canadian taxpayers actually foot part of the bill for foreign residents.
About 70 per cent of the funding comes from abroad while the rest comes from public funds, according to Bourgeault’s data.
“We are definitely in a health workforce crisis. We need to look at the way visa trainees occupy spots here in Canada and it needs to be considered as part of a systemic review,” she said.
Ivy Lynn Bourgeault, a professor at the University of Ottawa, said Canada needs to conduct a systemic review of health-care staffing. (Marc Robichaud/CBC News)
The system should be designed to prioritize the health needs of our own population, she said — and that requires giving the existing trainee program a hard look.
But Bourgeault warned an abrupt change could be disruptive.
Foreign residents do serve some critical functions while they’re here.
“We need to implement it in a phased approach so that it doesn’t cause more instability than we already have,” she said.
A spokesperson for IRCC said foreign medical residents “obtain specialized practical experience in Canadian hospitals and clinics” and they benefit Canada by “contributing their time and expertise to Canada’s health care systems and the treatment of Canadians.”
The federal department suggested there’s no plan to dismantle the regime.
“IRCC regularly monitors its programs and will publicly share any information if changes to current policies are made,” the spokesperson said.
Pawliuk said that response is misleading.
“How can IRCC possibly claim that foreigners displacing Canadians is a benefit? If Canadians filled these positions, they would stay to serve Canadians,” she said. “In the meantime, Canadians are dying from a lack of access.”
TORONTO – He’s firmly among Canada’s top three-year-olds but My Boy Prince faces a stiff test Saturday at Woodbine Racetrack.
The ’24 King’s Plate runner-up will be part of a global field in the $1-million Woodbine Mile turf event. Not only will it be My Boy Prince’s first race against older competition but among the seven other starters will be such horses as Naval Power (Great Britain), Big Rock (France) and Filo Di Arianna (Brazil).
My Boy Prince will race for the first time since finishing second to filly Caitlinhergrtness in the Plate on Aug. 23.
“It’s his first try against older horses and it’s hard to say where he fits in,” said trainer Mark Casse. “This time of year running a three-year-old against older horses, it’s like running a teenager against college athletes.
“We’re doing it because we believe a mile on the turf is his preferred surface … we wanted to give him a shot at this. (American owner Gary Barber) is someone who likes to think outside the box and take calculated risks so we’re going to see where he fits in.”
Casse, 16 times Canada’s top trainer, is a Hall of Famer both here and in the U.S. He’s also a two-time Woodbine Mile winner with filly Tepin (2016) and World Approval (2017).
Sahin Civaci will again ride My Boy Prince, Canada’s top two-year-old male who has six wins and 10 money finishes (6-3-1) in 11 career starts. The horse will be one of three Casse trainees in the race with Filo Di Arianna (ridden by Sovereign Award winner Kazushi Kimura) and Win for the Money (veteran Woodbine jockey Patrick Husbands aboard).
Naval Power, a four-year-old, has finished in the money in eight of nine starts (six wins, twice second) and will race in Canada for the first time. He comes to Woodbine with second-place finishes in two Grade 1 turf races.
Big Rock, another four-year-old, makes his North American debut Saturday. The horse has five wins and five second-place finishes in 14 starts but has struggled in ’24, finishing sixth, 10th and fifth in three races.
Filo Di Arianna is a four-time graded stakes winner with nine victories, three seconds and a third from 17 starts. It was Canada’s ’22 top male sprinter and champion male turf horse.
Other starters include Playmea Tune, Niagara Skyline and Secret Reserve.
Playmea Tune, a four-year-old, is trained by Josie Carrol. The gelding has made three starts, winning twice and finishing second in the Grade 3 Bold Venture on Aug. 23.
Woodbine-based Niagara Skyline is a six-year-old with 13 money finishes (six wins, five seconds, twice third) in 24-lifetime starts. The John Charlambous trainee has reached the podium (1-1-1) in all three races this year.
Secret Reserve, also a six-year-old, has finished in the money in 15-of-26 starts (six wins, one second, eight thirds). The horse, at 44-1, was third in the Grade 2 King Edward Stakes over a mile on the E.P. Taylor turf course.
The Mile highlights a stellar card featuring six graded stakes races. Also on tap are the $750,000 E.P. Taylor Stakes (fillies and mares), $500,000 bet365 Summer Stakes (two-year-olds) and $500,000 Johnnie Walker Natalma Stakes (two-year-old fillies), all Grade 1 turf events.
The Mile, Natalma and Summer winners earn automatic entries into the Breeders’ Cup at Del Mar in November.
Casse has won all four races, earning his first E.P. Taylor title last year with filly Fev Rover, Canada’s horse of the year and champion female turf horse. Fev Rover will defend her title Saturday against a field that includes Moira, the ’22 King’s Plate winner and Canada’s horse of the year trained by Woodbine’s Kevin Attard.
“It (E.P. Taylor) was definitely on my bucket list because it had eluded us,” Casse said. “But I honestly hadn’t realized I’d won all four of them, hadn’t really thought about it.”
Casse will have horses in all four turf races Saturday. Arguably the most intriguing matchup will be between Moira and Fev Rover, who ran 1-2, respectively, in a photo finish Aug. 11 in the Grade 2 Beverly D. Stakes, a 1 3/16-mile turf race, at Virginia’s Colonial Downs.
“What’s funny is the two of them went all the way to Virginia and she beat us by a nose,” Casse said. “We could’ve done that at Woodbine.
“There’s two of the best fillies in the world both from Toronto and they’re going to be competing Saturday.”
Some question having so many solid races on a single card but Casse likes the strategy.
“I think it’s a good thing,” he said. “On Saturday, the main focus on horse racing in the world will be on Woodbine and that’s because it’s such a great card.
“It’s an international day, there’s horses coming from everywhere and we’re going to do our best to represent Canada.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
NEWPORT, R.I. (AP) — Maria Sharapova, a five-time Grand Slam singles champion, led the International Tennis Hall of Fame’s fan vote her first year on the ballot — an important part to possible selection to the hall’s next class.
The organization released the voting results Friday. American doubles team Bob and Mike Bryan finished second with Canada’s Daniel Nestor third.
The Hall of Fame said tens of thousands of fans from 120 countries cast ballots. Fan voting is one of two steps in the hall’s selection process. The second is an official group of journalists, historians, and Hall of Famers from the sport who vote on the ballot for the hall’s class of 2025.
“I am incredibly grateful to the fans all around the world who supported me during the International Tennis Hall of Fame’s fan votes,” Sharapova said in a statement. “It is a tremendous honor to be considered for the Hall of Fame, and having the fans’ support makes it all the more special.”
Sharapova became the first Russian woman to reach No. 1 in the world. She won Wimbledon in 2004, the U.S. Open in 2006 and the Australian Open in 2008. She also won the French Open twice, in 2012 and 2014.
Sharapova was also part of Russia’s championship Fed Cup team in 2008 and won a silver medal at the London Olympics in 2012.
To make the hall, candidates must receive 75% or higher on combined results of the official voting group and additional percentage from the fan vote. Sharapova will have an additional three percentage points from winning the fan vote.
The Bryans, who won 16 Grand Slam doubles titles, will have two additional percentage points and Nestor, who won eight Grand Slam doubles titles, will get one extra percentage point.
The hall’s next class will be announced late next month.
TORONTO – Roots Corp. may have built its brand on all things comfy and cosy, but its CEO says activewear is now “really becoming a core part” of the brand.
The category, which at Roots spans leggings, tracksuits, sports bras and bike shorts, has seen such sustained double-digit growth that Meghan Roach plans to make it a key part of the business’ future.
“It’s an area … you will see us continue to expand upon,” she told analysts on a Friday call.
The Toronto-based retailer’s push into activewear has taken shape over many years and included several turns as the official designer and supplier of Team Canada’s Olympic uniform.
But consumers have had plenty of choice when it comes to workout gear and other apparel suited to their sporting needs. On top of the slew of athletic brands like Nike and Adidas, shoppers have also gravitated toward Lululemon Athletica Inc., Alo and Vuori, ramping up competition in the activewear category.
Roach feels Roots’ toehold in the category stems from the fit, feel and following its merchandise has cultivated.
“Our product really resonates with (shoppers) because you can wear it through multiple different use cases and occasions,” she said.
“We’ve been seeing customers come back again and again for some of these core products in our activewear collection.”
Her remarks came the same day as Roots revealed it lost $5.2 million in its latest quarter compared with a loss of $5.3 million in the same quarter last year.
The company said the second-quarter loss amounted to 13 cents per diluted share for the quarter ended Aug. 3, the same as a year earlier.
In presenting the results, Roach reminded analysts that the first half of the year is usually “seasonally small,” representing just 30 per cent of the company’s annual sales.
Sales for the second quarter totalled $47.7 million, down from $49.4 million in the same quarter last year.
The move lower came as direct-to-consumer sales amounted to $36.4 million, down from $37.1 million a year earlier, as comparable sales edged down 0.2 per cent.
The numbers reflect the fact that Roots continued to grapple with inventory challenges in the company’s Cooper fleece line that first cropped up in its previous quarter.
Roots recently began to use artificial intelligence to assist with daily inventory replenishments and said more tools helping with allocation will go live in the next quarter.
Beyond that time period, the company intends to keep exploring AI and renovate more of its stores.
It will also re-evaluate its design ranks.
Roots announced Friday that chief product officer Karuna Scheinfeld has stepped down.
Rather than fill the role, the company plans to hire senior level design talent with international experience in the outdoor and activewear sectors who will take on tasks previously done by the chief product officer.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
