Veterinarians in Canada say they are experiencing extreme burnout and plummeting mental health due to staff shortages, a booming number of animal patients and the round-the-clock stress of the job.
Neil Pothier, a veterinarian since 1985 who runs an animal hospital in Digby, N.S., said caring for animals has never been easy, but it’s a job he’s always loved.
“But now, all day long, people are talking about burnout and thinking of quitting,” Pothier said following a meeting with veterinarians from across Nova Scotia. “We are struggling to try and make it.”
Pothier said the increased workload, which in many rural areas comes with on-call emergency care 24 hours a day, is resulting in severe stress and exhaustion that has worsened over time. “People are just at the point where they don’t know what to do. And there is already a high suicide rate in the country in our profession, which is terrifying.”
Survey data compiled in 2020 suggests that veterinarians in Canada were far more likely to think about killing themselves when compared with the average person. The study, published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, found 26.2 per cent of 1,403 veterinarians surveyed had suicidal thoughts within the previous 12 months. Statistics Canada data from 2022 found that 2.5 per cent of Canadians surveyed had thoughts about killing themselves within the last year.
Pothier, who has lost veterinary colleagues to suicide, said the mental health of veterinary workers has been strained by a pandemic boom in pet numbers and a shortage of vet technologists, technicians and vets available to work.
“It really exploded during COVID,” Pothier said. “It seemed everybody sitting at home decided, ‘I should get myself a pet.’”
“After that, it was just out of control,” he said, adding that his patient roster increased by 40 per cent in the two years after the pandemic began.
Earlier this year, his patient list grew again after two vets shut down an animal hospital in nearby Yarmouth, N.S. “Two of them, who are in my age category, they just burned out . … They could not hire help and they walked away.”
The registrar of the New Brunswick Veterinary Medical Association said stress levels among veterinary staff in the province is much higher today than it was 18 years ago when she started as a veterinarian.
“We have had veterinarians and registered veterinary technicians leave the profession entirely or go on medical leave for burnout, fatigue,” Nicole Jewett said.
The province’s veterinary community was dealt a blow last summer when the sole veterinarian in a northern New Brunswick community died by suicide.
“We are a relatively small province … so it’s not just a (vet) licence number. It’s a person we all know and we’ve met,” Jewett said. Vets from across the province have volunteered their time to keep the colleague’s rural animal hospital open.
Some veterinary staff may feel trapped in their jobs and unable to get help, Jewett said.
“Unfortunately, they might feel that the only option is to leave. So whether it’s leaving the profession or leaving, you know, taking their own life,” she said.
Trevor Lawson, president of the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association and vet of 20 years, said euthanizing animals has a major impact on the mental health of vet staff, who often build long-term bonds with the pets they care for, and the pets’ owners.
“That connection and those relationships are very important,” Lawson said. “So I think that end-of-life care is a fair bit of weight for our colleagues to carry.”
As well, Jewett said an additional stressor is the “moral crisis” tied to the financial reality of operating a vet clinic and requiring clients to pay. “If the client doesn’t have the finances to cover that (treatment), then that’s a very terrible feeling for those veterinarians and the staff,” she said.
Jan Robinson, registrar and CEO of the College of Veterinarians of Ontario, said the veterinary sector is “feeling huge pressures from many different angles.”
Robinson said she is hearing from veterinary clinics that are struggling to hire workers and emergency animal hospitals that are understaffed and cannot maintain scheduled hours.
“And we’ve been hearing from the public that are concerned about long wait times for animal care … or the individual needs to travel quite a distance in order for their animal to receive care,” she said.
Veterinary medical associations in other provinces say they are experiencing staffing shortages, including Manitoba, where the registrar said the province is “undeniably facing a severe veterinarian shortage.”
The P.E.I. Veterinary Medical Association said there is a shortage of vets working in emergency positions, and the Quebec Order of Veterinary Doctors said it has become increasingly difficult to access vet services across the province in recent years.
In Ontario, the number of practising veterinarians has remained flat, Robinson said, but the college has noticed a change in how vets choose to work, which may be due to the strain of the job.
“Veterinary medicine provides 24-7 care to animals, and it’s not a large profession …. So the attitude toward work has altered over the last five to 10 years, where individuals are more concerned about work-life balance,” she said.
Robinson said she’s noticed there are fewer veterinarians who own their own practices, and an uptick in vets who work in roles that allow them to limit their hours.
“We’re seeing individuals move into locum positions, which gives them loads of control around saying things like, ‘No, I don’t work Tuesdays and Thursdays,’ or ‘I’m only going to work weekends because I want to be around for my kids during the week,’” she said.
Pothier said at his age, nearly 64, he had hoped to be slowing down at work, but instead he’s putting in “as many hours or more than I ever have.”
“I should be thinking of retirement, but there’s no one stepping up and there’s not enough new people moving into it. So we’re stuck holding the line until things change.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2023.
MONTREAL – Travel company Transat AT Inc. reported a loss in its latest quarter compared with a profit a year earlier as its revenue edged lower.
The parent company of Air Transat says it lost $39.9 million or $1.03 per diluted share in its quarter ended July 31.
The result compared with a profit of $57.3 million or $1.49 per diluted share a year earlier.
Revenue in what was the company’s third quarter totalled $736.2 million, down from $746.3 million in the same quarter last year.
On an adjusted basis, Transat says it lost $1.10 per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of $1.10 per share a year earlier.
Transat chief executive Annick Guérard says demand for leisure travel remains healthy, as evidenced by higher traffic, but consumers are increasingly price conscious given the current economic uncertainty.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Dollarama Inc.’s food aisles may have expanded far beyond sweet treats or piles of gum by the checkout counter in recent years, but its chief executive maintains his company is “not in the grocery business,” even if it’s keeping an eye on the sector.
“It’s just one small part of our store,” Neil Rossy told analysts on a Wednesday call, where he was questioned about the company’s food merchandise and rivals playing in the same space.
“We will keep an eye on all retailers — like all retailers keep an eye on us — to make sure that we’re competitive and we understand what’s out there.”
Over the last decade and as consumers have more recently sought deals, Dollarama’s food merchandise has expanded to include bread and pantry staples like cereal, rice and pasta sold at prices on par or below supermarkets.
However, the competition in the discount segment of the market Dollarama operates in intensified recently when the country’s biggest grocery chain began piloting a new ultra-discount store.
The No Name stores being tested by Loblaw Cos. Ltd. in Windsor, St. Catharines and Brockville, Ont., are billed as 20 per cent cheaper than discount retail competitors including No Frills. The grocery giant is able to offer such cost savings by relying on a smaller store footprint, fewer chilled products and a hearty range of No Name merchandise.
Though Rossy brushed off notions that his company is a supermarket challenger, grocers aren’t off his radar.
“All retailers in Canada are realistic about the fact that everyone is everyone’s competition on any given item or category,” he said.
Rossy declined to reveal how much of the chain’s sales would overlap with Loblaw or the food category, arguing the vast variety of items Dollarama sells is its strength rather than its grocery products alone.
“What makes Dollarama Dollarama is a very wide assortment of different departments that somewhat represent the old five-and-dime local convenience store,” he said.
The breadth of Dollarama’s offerings helped carry the company to a second-quarter profit of $285.9 million, up from $245.8 million in the same quarter last year as its sales rose 7.4 per cent.
The retailer said Wednesday the profit amounted to $1.02 per diluted share for the 13-week period ended July 28, up from 86 cents per diluted share a year earlier.
The period the quarter covers includes the start of summer, when Rossy said the weather was “terrible.”
“The weather got slightly better towards the end of the summer and our sales certainly increased, but not enough to make up for the season’s horrible start,” he said.
Sales totalled $1.56 billion for the quarter, up from $1.46 billion in the same quarter last year.
Comparable store sales, a key metric for retailers, increased 4.7 per cent, while the average transaction was down2.2 per cent and traffic was up seven per cent, RBC analyst Irene Nattel pointed out.
She told investors in a note that the numbers reflect “solid demand as cautious consumers focus on core consumables and everyday essentials.”
Analysts have attributed such behaviour to interest rates that have been slow to drop and high prices of key consumer goods, which are weighing on household budgets.
To cope, many Canadians have spent more time seeking deals, trading down to more affordable brands and forgoing small luxuries they would treat themselves to in better economic times.
“When people feel squeezed, they tend to shy away from discretionary, focus on the basics,” Rossy said. “When people are feeling good about their wallet, they tend to be more lax about the basics and more willing to spend on discretionary.”
The current economic situation has drawn in not just the average Canadian looking to save a buck or two, but also wealthier consumers.
“When the entire economy is feeling slightly squeezed, we get more consumers who might not have to or want to shop at a Dollarama generally or who enjoy shopping at a Dollarama but have the luxury of not having to worry about the price in some other store that they happen to be standing in that has those goods,” Rossy said.
“Well, when times are tougher, they’ll consider the extra five minutes to go to the store next door.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
TORONTO – The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has ordered TD Bank Group to pay US$28 million for repeatedly sharing inaccurate, negative information about its customers to consumer reporting companies.
The agency says TD has to pay US$7.76 million in total to tens of thousands of victims of its illegal actions, along with a US$20 million civil penalty.
It says TD shared information that contained systemic errors about credit card and bank deposit accounts to consumer reporting companies, which can include credit reports as well as screening reports for tenants and employees and other background checks.
CFPB director Rohit Chopra says in a statement that TD threatened the consumer reports of customers with fraudulent information then “barely lifted a finger to fix it,” and that regulators will need to “focus major attention” on TD Bank to change its course.
TD says in a statement it self-identified these issues and proactively worked to improve its practices, and that it is committed to delivering on its responsibilities to its customers.
The bank also faces scrutiny in the U.S. over its anti-money laundering program where it expects to pay more than US$3 billion in monetary penalties to resolve.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
