Honourable senators, today, I am pleased to share with you two events that are very meaningful to me.

Today, May 18, is the two hundred and nineteenth anniversary of the Haitian flag. The cities of Gatineau and Niagara Falls raised the Haitian flag today to celebrate the contribution that Haitians have made to building Canada. What is more, the flag’s colours, blue and red, will be projected onto the Niagara falls this evening and, beginning at 9:45 p.m., the entire world will be able to admire the bicoloured falls live at earthcam.com.

Tomorrow, May 19, is World Family Doctor Day. The Collège québécois des médecins de famille stated that “the patient-doctor relationship and continuity of care are at the very heart of family medicine.”

Unfortunately, in Canada, nearly a hundred family medicine resident positions remain unfilled, according to the Canadian Resident Matching Service or CaRMS.

Many people in my profession are wondering why it is so difficult to have foreign qualifications recognized in Canada. There are people passing the qualifying examinations administered by the Medical Council of Canada, but the resident positions still remain unfilled. According to the former president of the Fédération des médecins omnipraticiens du Québec, Dr. Louis Godin, Quebec is already short about 1,000 family doctors. For every doctor we are short, that is 1,000 people who do not have a family doctor.

Despite the importance of family medicine, Dr. Marie-France Raynault, chief of the CHUM’s Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, points out that this specialization is still undervalued. It also gets bad-mouthed in the media, and there is a lack of exposure for young graduates. All of this has been exacerbated by the pandemic, so you get the picture.

If only the graduates knew how challenging and rewarding this type of practice is. As one of my mentors, Dr. Gilles Des Rosiers, used to say, “A family physician specializes in the whole person.” As an immigrant family physician myself, trained in medicine in Haiti, I speak from experience. I don’t need to see Seducing Doctor Lewis again to understand the important role that family doctors play in a community.

I am asking the appropriate authorities to work harder to promote the value of family medicine.

Happy World Family Doctor Day, and happy Haitian Flag Day to Haitian Canadians.

Thank you.