Scott Brison and Michael Ignatieff announce the Liberals' commitment to attract more doctors and nurses to rural Canada in front of the Hants Shore Health Centre in Nova Scotia (April 16, 2010).
Earlier today, in Hants County, Nova Scotia, I announced that a Liberal government would help attract doctors, nurses and nurse practitioners to underserved rural communities by forgiving up to $20,000 of their student debt.
It’s the first of a series of announcements I’ll be making in the coming weeks – announcements that outline the concrete steps a Liberal government would take to improve the lives of rural Canadians.
This first initiative, which would be implemented in consultation with the provinces and territories, would forgive up to $5,000 per year in federal student loans, up to $20,000 over four years. (An equitable share of funds would be applied towards regional health needs in Quebec, as they are not part of the Canada Student Loans program.) The program would help attract and retain more than 1,500 new health professionals each year in underserved communities.
Our commitment to improving rural health services addresses a problem that touches the lives of too many rural families. While 20 percent of Canadians live in rural areas, only 10 percent of Canada’s doctors practice there. For rural Canadians that can mean hours of driving and additional costs to ensure loved ones get the medical care they need.
Rural Canada matters. It puts food on our tables and drives much of the resource wealth of our country. Rural Canadians deserve the same opportunities and comparable levels of service that urban Canadians enjoy.
And yet this Conservative government hasn’t just divided rural and urban Canada. It has let the rural economy suffer unnecessarily during this recession, making it harder than ever for rural Canadians to get the services they deserve: healthcare, education, internet connectivity and in some cases, even mail service.
At the Canada at 150 conference in March, we presented Canadians with a clear choice: the Liberal plan to tackle the Conservative deficit and invest in jobs and people – including rural doctors and nurses – or Stephen Harper’s priority of giving more tax cuts to corporations (already among the lowest in the G7) before our country and our families can afford to lower them further.
At the conference, we also determined that we’ll have to work together as a network of responsible actors to overcome Canada’s challenges. That’s why I’m asking you to weigh in on today’s announcement on my Facebook page, here. I hope you will discuss each policy following its announcement because at the end we will bring it all together for a live online town hall where I want to answer whatever questions you might have about how these policies will touch your life.
Michael Ignatieff
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