Federal Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff says his party will use the next election campaign to promise financial incentives for health-care students willing to work in rural Canada.
He said a Liberal government would work with provinces to arrange forgiveness of $5,000 in federal student debt per year to a maximum of $20,000 if they make a rural service commitment.
Ignatieff said it could help attract and retain more than 1,500 doctors, nurses and nurse practitioners in rural areas.
“Our rural caucus has told us that the availability of health-care services has been a concern for many years and we are listening because rural Canada matters so much to the future of our country,” he said, in a release from his Ottawa office.
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Ignatieff said the health professionals announcement was the first of many rural policies he will be announcing as the party tries to increase its diminished foothold in rural constituencies that largely have turned their backs on the party.
There was no indication that the student loan forgiveness program would be weighted toward rural students.
The Society of Rural Physicians of Canada had no immediate response to the announcement, although it has stressed that the main way to attract more health professionals to rural areas is to encourage rural residents to go to medical school.
In a blueprint for improving rural health-care services, the society proposed the creation of rural access scholarships as a way to “increase the number of rural and remote residents’ access to medical education.”
It argues that while just 13 percent of medical students come from rural communities, half of them will choose to work in rural areas. Among medical students from the city, just five percent will work in rural practices.
Ignatieff argued that the recession has made the Canadian rural-urban divide worse.
“Rural Canada can’t thrive without access to the same tools as urban Canada but the recession has strained the rural economy and rural communities to the point where they can’t get the services they deserve,” he said.
He repeated an earlier assertion that if rural areas do not have mail, health care, education and internet services comparable to urban areas, “we risk a rural-urban divide that is a national unity challenge.”
Later, the Liberal leader said the Conservative government has let the rural economy suffer during this recession, making it harder for rural Canadians to get the services they deserve.
Using Liberal party estimates of the number of students that would be helped, the promise would cost the government $7.5 million annually.
