December 2, 2025 • 5 mins
Jon Liedtke joined The Gene Valaitis Show on Niagara’s 610 CKTB to discuss a controversial Canadian program where Canadian universities’ medical schools, funded by foreign countries (of which Saudi Arabia currently makes up 50%), trains hundreds of international physicians annually who then return home credentialed as Canadian doctors.
While this program generates an estimated millions for the universities – Saudi for example pays $100,000 per trainee – critics argue it’s ethically questionable, given the Saudi regime’s human rights record, and strategically flawed, as Canada already faces a severe doctor shortage, leaving millions of Canadians without a family doctor.
The program is criticized for essentially training the away team – on home ice – who are contracted to leave, rather than investing the funds to create residency spots for thousands of Canadian medical graduates to address the ongoing issues in our healthcare system.
While this program generates an estimated millions for the universities – Saudi for example pays $100,000 per trainee – critics argue it’s ethically questionable, given the Saudi regime’s human rights record, and strategically flawed, as Canada already faces a severe doctor shortage, leaving millions of Canadians without a family doctor.
The program is criticized for essentially training the away team – on home ice – who are contracted to leave, rather than investing the funds to create residency spots for thousands of Canadian medical graduates to address the ongoing issues in our healthcare system.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Every Tuesday morning, our regular contributor John Lidkey is here.
He's rough, he's tough, he's gruff. Yeah, I like him
or you don't. It's just like that. Good morning John.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Good morning Geane. I'll take it.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Well, there's a couple of things we need to talk
about now. Yesterday and volitis on the news, I was
talking about the story and it goes back to the
University of Toronto's Temorty Faculty of Medicine, and what they
do is they offer programs to five hundred international physicians
a year. Their home countries have to pay one hundred
thousand dollars. These students come here, they train them as
(00:35):
doctors and then they go back to their home country
credentials as Canadian doctors. Now, one of the leading countries
giving money to the UFT is Saudi Arabia and sending
their people here. Now, Saudi Arabia, of course, is a dictatorship.
It's accused of human rights abuses, it includes political executions.
(00:58):
They still do beheadings, they have killed foreign journalists. And
at a committee in Ottawa last week, a member of
parliament who happens to be a doctor in Kitchener was
asking doctor Patricia Houston if she could answer the question
should women in Saudi Arabia be allowed to drive a car?
And amazingly enough, she could not answer that question, John,
(01:20):
what's going on?
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Yeah, you know, this is a tough situation. When you
end up taking this kind of money from foreign countries
that might not have the same human rights records and
values as US, but you become dependent on that stream
of revenue, it becomes very difficult to criticize where that
money comes from, and you end up with really uncomfortable
(01:43):
and difficult testimony like we saw.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Yeah, eighteen million dollars, that's a lot of do come
from Saudi Arabia. Yeah, you know it is.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
And I think when we talk about how much money
is actually coming in here a year, we're talking about
a thousand Saudi funded doctors a year in Canada total,
and in total for foreign doctors that are here training,
it's about double that. Saudi Arabia makes up about half
of it right now. So you know, we're talking about
(02:12):
one hundred million dollars two hundred million dollars total here roughly,
And I would be arguing that we should just be
investing that money ourselves to ensure that the thousands of
internationally trained Canadian graduates have residency spots that they can't
access today. So there are government quotas that state how
(02:33):
many spots international medical graduate Canadians are able to take
in the country versus foreign spots. But we know what
the situation that we're dealing with here. We have a
doctor shortage that exists already in this country, and I
think most people would be questioning, why are we training
foreign doctors who are, by the very nature of the
(02:53):
agreement going to leave at the end of their tenure.
We are essentially here training the away team to compete
against us on our own home turf. It's kind of
crazy when you wrap your head around it. And with
Saudi Arabia specifically, and I don't want to, you know,
specifically center out Saudi here other than the fact that
they make a path and the testimony that we saw
(03:15):
specifically related to them, so it's a timely news story.
They're specifically doing this because they are issuing a vision
twenty thirty where they want to completely improve and radicalize
their health network In gosh, don't you think we should
be doing something like that here too, rather than helping
another country achieve that.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Well, we talked about this on the show last week.
Six point one million Canadians can't find a family doctor,
and in twenty twenty four across Canada, over twenty thousand Canadians,
including something like ten thousand in Ontario. Ontario unfortunately led
the way, died on medical waiting lists. So I'm wondering,
we need Canadian doctors. I don't get this program. Yeah,
(03:56):
we do.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
And listen, I've dove into this program a lot over
the past couple days trying to understand it, and there
are merits to the program. What hospitals say is we
need these people. They're already trained as doctors, and getting
them into a position where they can actually be working
on the floor and doing the very necessary services but
(04:17):
hospitals rely on is crucial for them. The flip side
to that is, could we achieve that with Canadian doctors? Yes?
How do we get there? More money, more investment, We
need to have more medical schools, we need to increase
residency spots. But the problem is is those things take time.
They will come out after the next election cycle, and gosh,
what politician wants to do something for the politician of tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Yeah, good point. I like your comments. We're training the
away team on home ice. That was good. Hey it's frustrating. Yeah, John,
always great to talk to you on Tuesday morning. Thank
you so much. Love your perspectives, Rank Ejene. Okay, there
he goes John Litkey. We have them on every twonesday
morning
Every Tuesday morning, our regular contributor John Lidkey is here.
He's rough, he's tough, he's gruff. Yeah, I like him
or you don't. It's just like that. Good morning John.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Good morning Geane. I'll take it.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Well, there's a couple of things we need to talk
about now. Yesterday and volitis on the news, I was
talking about the story and it goes back to the
University of Toronto's Temorty Faculty of Medicine, and what they
do is they offer programs to five hundred international physicians
a year. Their home countries have to pay one hundred
thousand dollars. These students come here, they train them as
(00:35):
doctors and then they go back to their home country
credentials as Canadian doctors. Now, one of the leading countries
giving money to the UFT is Saudi Arabia and sending
their people here. Now, Saudi Arabia, of course, is a dictatorship.
It's accused of human rights abuses, it includes political executions.
(00:58):
They still do beheadings, they have killed foreign journalists. And
at a committee in Ottawa last week, a member of
parliament who happens to be a doctor in Kitchener was
asking doctor Patricia Houston if she could answer the question
should women in Saudi Arabia be allowed to drive a car?
And amazingly enough, she could not answer that question, John,
(01:20):
what's going on?
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Yeah, you know, this is a tough situation. When you
end up taking this kind of money from foreign countries
that might not have the same human rights records and
values as US, but you become dependent on that stream
of revenue, it becomes very difficult to criticize where that
money comes from, and you end up with really uncomfortable
(01:43):
and difficult testimony like we saw.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Yeah, eighteen million dollars, that's a lot of do come
from Saudi Arabia. Yeah, you know it is.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
And I think when we talk about how much money
is actually coming in here a year, we're talking about
a thousand Saudi funded doctors a year in Canada total,
and in total for foreign doctors that are here training,
it's about double that. Saudi Arabia makes up about half
of it right now. So you know, we're talking about
(02:12):
one hundred million dollars two hundred million dollars total here roughly,
And I would be arguing that we should just be
investing that money ourselves to ensure that the thousands of
internationally trained Canadian graduates have residency spots that they can't
access today. So there are government quotas that state how
(02:33):
many spots international medical graduate Canadians are able to take
in the country versus foreign spots. But we know what
the situation that we're dealing with here. We have a
doctor shortage that exists already in this country, and I
think most people would be questioning, why are we training
foreign doctors who are, by the very nature of the
(02:53):
agreement going to leave at the end of their tenure.
We are essentially here training the away team to compete
against us on our own home turf. It's kind of
crazy when you wrap your head around it. And with
Saudi Arabia specifically, and I don't want to, you know,
specifically center out Saudi here other than the fact that
they make a path and the testimony that we saw
(03:15):
specifically related to them, so it's a timely news story.
They're specifically doing this because they are issuing a vision
twenty thirty where they want to completely improve and radicalize
their health network In gosh, don't you think we should
be doing something like that here too, rather than helping
another country achieve that.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Well, we talked about this on the show last week.
Six point one million Canadians can't find a family doctor,
and in twenty twenty four across Canada, over twenty thousand Canadians,
including something like ten thousand in Ontario. Ontario unfortunately led
the way, died on medical waiting lists. So I'm wondering,
we need Canadian doctors. I don't get this program. Yeah,
(03:56):
we do.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
And listen, I've dove into this program a lot over
the past couple days trying to understand it, and there
are merits to the program. What hospitals say is we
need these people. They're already trained as doctors, and getting
them into a position where they can actually be working
on the floor and doing the very necessary services but
(04:17):
hospitals rely on is crucial for them. The flip side
to that is, could we achieve that with Canadian doctors? Yes?
How do we get there? More money, more investment, We
need to have more medical schools, we need to increase
residency spots. But the problem is is those things take time.
They will come out after the next election cycle, and gosh,
what politician wants to do something for the politician of tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Yeah, good point. I like your comments. We're training the
away team on home ice. That was good. Hey it's frustrating. Yeah, John,
always great to talk to you on Tuesday morning. Thank
you so much. Love your perspectives, Rank Ejene. Okay, there
he goes John Litkey. We have them on every twonesday
morning
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