Hon. Danièle Henkel: Good afternoon, minister. Thank you for being here.

Minister, a midwife trained in Vancouver can’t work directly in Moncton. An electrician from Alberta can’t work in Montreal. The act of bringing a baby into the world or working on electricity does not change at provincial borders, and yet professional orders claim that they do.

Meanwhile, our hospitals are understaffed, our construction sites lack technicians, and skilled immigrants recruited at great expense from abroad are waiting years to be allowed to work in their field.

Minister, you promised a 30-day standard for processing interprovincial recognition applications. Why has this standard still not come into effect? When will that happen?

Thank you.

Hon. Dominic LeBlanc, P.C., M.P., President of the King’s Privy Council for Canada and Minister responsible for Canada-U.S. Trade, Intergovernmental Affairs, Internal Trade and One Canadian Economy: Thank you for the question, senator.

I completely agree with your question and the issues you raised.

As I mentioned, in the meetings I attended with Mr. Carney, the most insistent premiers were often those from Ontario and Nova Scotia, but the other premiers agreed with these discussions. We need to trust people. If someone is qualified to be a technician in an Alberta hospital, I’d be very pleased if that person could work in New Brunswick and if that mutual recognition were in place.

Legislation governing those professional orders is fully in the hands of provincial legislative assemblies. We have ways of encouraging them. I’ve even stated publicly that we want to make significant progress on labour mobility. You mentioned the health care sector, which I believe is essential for Canadians. I’ve been criticized for saying that if we don’t see rapid progress, we’ll have to look at the money we transfer to the provinces for workforce training to encourage them to move faster.

The Hon. the Speaker: Thank you, minister.