The Canadian federal government has initiated an expedited training initiative led by the Association of Canadian Faculties of Dentistry, which aims to evaluate and train 6,600 internationally educated dentists within a few months, as opposed to the traditional two to three years.
The aim of this is to address health-care labor shortages by training these dentists which it will do through a funding of $86 million allocated for the foreign credential recognition program.
The announcement was made by Randy Boissonnault, the federal minister of Employment, Workforce Development, and Official Languages, at the University of Manitoba’s College of Dentistry in Winnipeg.
Nairametrics learns that Canada has more than 90,000 healthcare job vacancies, including for physicians and nurses as indicated by Boissonnault. Hence, this will boost the job outlook for Nigerian trainee dentists.
Supporting foreign-trained dentists
The funding will be dispersed through 15 different projects across Canada.
Notably, The Association of Canadian Faculties of Dentistry, based in Winnipeg, plans to utilize its share of $8.3 million to initiate a pilot program expediting the training of foreign-educated dentists.
However, the training will be introduced in Manitoba only after completing the pilot project at universities in Alberta, Nova Scotia, and Quebec.
The federal funding, part of its budget, supports organizations that successfully apply for the foreign credential recognition program’s annual funding.
This year, the Association of Canadian Faculties of Dentistry is the sole Manitoba-based recipient of the funding.
What the Minister said
Minister Boissonnault, the federal minister responsible for foreign credential recognition with his provincial counterpart, Jamie Moses, Manitoba’s minister of Economic Development, Investment, Trade, and Natural Resources discussed Canada’s labour market priorities.
He indicated that he needs buy-in from the provinces to reduce the barriers in place at many regulatory bodies governing healthcare professions.
According to him,
- “The regulatory bodies setting rules and regulations for professions are almost entirely provincial in scope.”
- “I also need provincial ministers to work with the federal government to indicate very clearly which are those occupations that we’re going to focus on, and then we’re going to open up and we’re going to make sure that foreign-trained professions have access to that”.
- “We know where the biggest needs are in the labour market, and I need the support of provincial counterparts to get the work done.”
How this will benefit foreign-trained dentists
More than half of the annually licensed dentists in Canada have received their education in other countries.
This accelerated training model will be implemented across all 10 dental schools in Canada, according to Jim Lai, the president of the association, following the completion of the pilot project at the University of Alberta, Universite du Laval, and Dalhousie University
Anastasia Kelekis-Cholakis, dean of U of M’s College of Dentistry said,
- “Once we have the data, we’ll be able to advocate the provincial government and the federal government”.
