Liberal Leader Mark Carney is making a direct appeal to Canadian doctors and nurses living in the U.S. to “come home.”
Carney made the comments Monday while talking up his health-care plan, which looks to add thousands of new physicians to the system.
He said his government would streamline credential recognition and look to poach global talent, including doctors working in the U.S.
“To the Canadian health-care professionals practising in the U.S., let me say this. If you’ve been thinking about coming back to Canada, there’s never been a better time,” Carney told a morning press conference at the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown.
“It’s time to come home.”
Carney rolled out a health-care plan that includes $4 billion for building and renovating hospitals and long-term care homes.
“Hospitals and clinics have been closing, while the needs in the health-care system are growing. We must reverse this trend and increase access to team-based care,” he said.
Carney, who started the last week of the election campaign on the East Coast, was introduced at an event Monday by incumbent MP Sean Casey, who called Carney the “adult in the room” in Canadian politics.
The Liberal leader also took a moment to react to the death of Pope Francis. Carney called him a “voice of moral clarity” with “boundless compassion.”
Carney arrived in Prince Edward Island on Sunday and greeted supporters and local MPs at the Charlottetown airport.
Liberal MPs currently hold all four seats in P. E. I, with three of those incumbents running for re-election.
Former agriculture minister Lawrence MacAulay, who was first elected as MP for the riding of Cardigan in 1997, is not running again.
The Liberal party currently holds 23 of 32 seats in Atlantic Canada.
While the Liberals swept the region entirely in 2015, they have since lost some of those seats to the Conservatives.
Article by Anja Karadeglija.
— With files from Kyle Duggan in Ottawa
