Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We all know we're at a nursing shortage and the competition to get nurses is getting stricter and stricter. But one of the things that should not be a barrier to hiring more nurses is a backlog process to get nurses from some other jurisdictions licensed.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I want to walk you through a timeline of a nurse who recently moved to the Northwest Territories, started applying for jobs, took a couple months to get through the interview process and get a contract in hand. Then once they took that contract, they went and applied to the Registered Nursing Association of Northwest Territories and Nunavut to get licensed. At this point, you have to if you're coming from another province, you have to get that registered nursing association to send your proof of license over. And as an example, Mr. Speaker, in Ontario, that process is taking about two months right now, for Ontario just to send the form to the Northwest Territories. Then the registered nurses association here, once they have the actual form, will approve you. But, Mr. Speaker, quite a few things can go wrong in this process. Say, if you started this process in the fall of 2022, for example, and the calendar year has passed to 2023, you are forced to then reapply in 2023 to make sure you have a 2023 license. So you're kind of in this limbo of hoping you get that license for 2022. And say, if you, for example, forgot to renew your license in the other jurisdiction because you thought maybe you were going to have a license in this jurisdiction by then, you might be in the position of a nurse who has been in the territory for six months, who is licensed, who has a job offer, and who cannot start work.
And, Mr. Speaker, the process I just described was for a licensed nurse coming from Canada. The process for an international nurse is even more burdensome and is an even more questionable timeline. Most recently, the Canadian nursing association has asked Premiers all across Canada to fast track their licensing. The Ontario Premier, BC, Saskatchewan, and Nova Scotia, have all given direction to fast track nursing license applications, especially for foreign nurses. We saw this, trying to get nurses who are fleeing the Ukraine. We have not taken that step.
In regards to the jurisdiction, what's happening is it seems other resident nurses associations are backlogged and they're not getting the forms out quick enough. But I think the Minister of health is overdue to have a meeting with our registered nursing association and discuss some solutions on how we can make sure that getting this paperwork done is not a barrier to hiring. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Members' statements. Member for Nahendeh.
