Recently revealed figures that the government tried to hide show that Canada will need tens of thousands of new nurses to fill shortages in the coming years.
According to figures that were once denied after Global News filed a freedom-of-information request but later obtain by the Canadian Press, Canada will need 33,000 new nurses and nearly 51,000 more PSWs over the next eight years—which people in the industry say is unlikely to happen if not straight up impossible.
Moreover, according to SEIU Healthcare president Sharleen Stewart, the representative of the largest healthcare union in Canada, the fact the government tried to cover this fact up is extremely telling of their confidence in being able to pull it off.
“It’s the government that has to have the will to address it. When they’re hiding it so that we don’t solve the problem by increasing wages and improving the conditions of work and conditions of care in the workplace, then they’re obviously not serious about solving this problem for seniors of our province,” Stewart said.
It’s no secret that Canada has been struggling with filling positions in healthcare, but this recent revelation shows that things are probably going to get a lot worse before they get any better.
This is especially apparent given the fact that the Liberal government has seemingly gone out of its way to scare off native-born Canadian doctors by hiking the capital gains tax inclusion rate, which will greatly diminish returns when selling a practice.
Unsurprisingly, this has led to even more doctors considering selling off their practice earlier or picking up shop and moving to the US, which will obviously lead to less positions available for other workers like nurses and PSWs.
In response to this completely predictable outcome, Liberal MP Richie Valdez, the Minister of Small Businesses, announced the Liberal government’s plan: they’re just going to replace all the doctors who leave with foreign ones.
