The province is hoping that having more seats available in veterinary medicine programs can help address shortages in that field.
Agriculture Minister Nate Horner was on the Trending 55 Hot Seat and says that veterinarians play an important role in helping farmers care for their animals.
“You require a vet for a lot of things and one is procurement of prescriptions and the ability to purchase and buy drugs. It’s not just the physical job of needing a vet to do a c-section or whatever difficult job it may be but they provide different services to each of these communities.”
The Alberta government is investing $8.4 million over three years for expanding the faculty of veterinary medicine at the University of Calgary.
Horner says having more seats in veterinary medicine programs is a big piece of addressing those shortages, but it’s not the only one.
“We’re also looking at some different programs and targeted recruitment. Right now we think there’s some potential opportunity in Europe, especially with some of the changes around Brexit, where we think we can maybe incentivise some large animal vets to think about moving and settling down in Alberta. I think there’s room for a great career so we’re working with JEI and Labour and Immigration to pursue some of those things.”
You can hear our full interview wit Horner below.
– Kyle Moore, Trending 55 Newsroom
