Increasing capacity for veterinary medicine
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Summary
Learn English with Minister of Agriculture, Agriculture and Irrigation, Sonny McCorgill. In this episode, Ms. Lovely speaks at a groundbreaking ceremony on the University of Calgary's Spruce Hill campus.
Transcript
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I'm Jackie Lovely, and I'm the MLA for the Camrose constituency, and I'm so happy to be here.
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Welcome to the University of Calgary Spy Hill campus.
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I'd like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the traditional territories of the people of Treaty 7 region in southern Alberta.
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The City of Calgary is also home to the Métis Nation of Alberta Districts 5 and 6.
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Agriculture is a foundational economic sector that creates opportunities in every region of our province while feeding the world.
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However, the global shortage of veterinarians poses a significant challenge to the health and productivity of livestock and farm animals,
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making it difficult for producers to access timely and quality veterinarian care.
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This is why I'm so proud to be a part of a government that is marketing targeted investment
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to support our rural economy, open doors for students, and get more veterinarians trained
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and working in rural Alberta. In support of our government's initiatives, I introduced motion 524
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in November 2021 to recognize the important work of veterinarians and explore ways our government
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can help increase the number of veterinarians serving rural albertans this motion passed with
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unanimous consent of the assembly and i'm so grateful our government for acted on behalf of
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the province interests to increase veterinary education and opportunity and thank you to the
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university of calgary and to the faculty of veterinary medicine for your partnership and
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our government and taking serious action to support livestock producers and i just wanted to stop and
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pause for just a moment and give a special shout out to Pam Trollock. So Pam really got the ball
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rolling with me. She's a consultant with what matters. And Dr. Weller, where's Dr. Weller?
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She's going to be coming to the podium here as well. And Dr. McCorgill, thank you so much for
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your support for me with my motion moving this forward. As a rural Albertan and as an MLA,
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this was highlighted to me by my constituents as being a number one priority. And I'm so glad
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that we're finally moving forward on that today with a groundbreaking ceremony and with that i
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would like to introduce our amazing minister sonny thank you thank you mla lovely and thank you for
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your advocacy that's why we're here today and welcome everybody it's great to see so many
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people here today for this amazing and monumental announcement all right it is a pleasure to be here
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today at a university of calgary campus u of c is my alma mater and whenever i tour one of our world
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class post-secondary institutions i'm always reminded of the importance of what happens here
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for our society and for our economy and especially for our students colleges universities and
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polytechnics matter today and obviously well beyond today this is where the future is being made
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not just the future of students careers and lives but the future of our province
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back in 2005 the university of calgary established its faculty of veterinary medicine
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Alberta's first true school of veterinary medicine. Over the years, Alberta's government
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supported the decision to consolidate Alberta's veterinary training in Calgary instead of sending
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our students to programs outside of the province. In less than two decades, the faculty of veterinary
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medicine has become recognized among the top 50 veterinary programs worldwide and is renowned for
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its innovative approach to veterinary education and basic and applied research as we have seen
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in so many professions the demand for veterinarians has been growing as has been mentioned particularly
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in rural alberta and our booming economy has only heightened that demand just last year my
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predecessor minister nicolaitis announced an additional 8.4 million dollars over three years
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to expand student capacity by 15 seats in the veterinary medicine program today i'm so very
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pleased to announce that alberta's government is providing a further 11.2 million dollars to support
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the faculty of veterinary medicine the additional funding
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it truly is fantastic news worthy of applause this additional funding will achieve two very
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important goals first a 10 million dollar expansion of program capacity it will help
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address the demand for more veterinarians and secondly I'm happy to announce on behalf
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behalf of my colleague, the Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation, RJ Sigurdsson, an additional
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$1.2 million which will support equipment for molecular diagnostics for livestock and
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capital funding for renovations to the clinical skills building and lab equipment. Beginning
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in the 2025-26 academic year, these investments will allow the University of Calgary to welcome
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even more veterinary students increasing the number from 50 to 100 this is an important milestone
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it doubles the student levels from 2021 to 2022 as part of the expansion the funding will support
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development of a new veterinary learning commons building here at the spy hill campus this new
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modern facility will have flexible learning spaces wellness spaces and numerous student gathering
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areas to achieve new levels of excellence in the educational experience since the faculty of
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veterinary medicine was established almost 20 years ago we have seen the value of investing
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in access to this program for albertans the program's highly skilled graduates support rural
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alberta our animal and equine industries overall animal and human health research and of course
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public health by providing a new and modern learning space here in calgary alberta's government
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is offering more opportunities for alberta veterinary students to learn and contribute
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their expertise closer to home in conclusion as minister of advanced education i'm committed to
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working with our post-secondary community to provide our province with the skilled professionals
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that we need to serve Albertans. I'm so very excited for the University of
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Calgary, for the students, and for the significant difference that today's
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investment will make for the University of Calgary's Faculty of Veterinary
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Medicine and of course for Alberta's future veterinarians. Thank you so much
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for this opportunity to share this wonderful news with all of you. Thank you.
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Now, I have the pleasure of introducing the president, Mr. Ed McCauley.
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Good afternoon. Good afternoon, everyone. It's really great to see everybody here today.
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It's just an amazing afternoon to see members of the government, but also members of our
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community and also our colleagues from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. It's just an incredible
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day. We also have members of the Alberta Veterinary Medicine Association here with us,
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including incoming president, Dr. Serge Shalhoub, who will be speaking a little bit later. And
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again, welcome to those people who haven't had a chance to visit our University of Calgary
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Spy Hills campus, a campus that we're very, very proud of, and soon to become the home
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of the Veterinary Learning Commons building, which we'll see in a moment. Something we
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are very very excited about something we know the entire veterinary community
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and the important animal focused industries they serve are also extremely
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excited about and something that's possible thanks to the significant and
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generous provincial investments to expand our capacity which I know are
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strongly backed by our community that we serve our capacity for diagnostic
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services something very very important across the province capacity in terms of
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increasing our enrollment as the minister mentioned in terms of enabling the
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University of Calgary to actually double the number of veterinary seats per year
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to 100 seats per year a very very important capacity that means we are
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going to be able to create more veterinarians for this province who are
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urgently needed to serve and fill the shortage of Alberta's needs for
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veterinary services as well as knowledge that we're creating through veterinary
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science every Albertan knows how important veterinary medicine is to our economy and we
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can only support those sectors if universities like the University of Calgary train people in
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in-demand skills so they can keep up with the job market as well as its changing needs the way in
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which we treat animals throughout the province and we could not do that without the incredible
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support of our partners like the provincial government and the incredible support from
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our community an example i think people know about quite well is our support from valued
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philanthropists like jack anderson and win chisholm thanks to their generous gift of the wa ranches
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just west of here university of calgary can offer veterinary students a truly hands-on experience
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one that's helped us propel up the ranks of veterinary schools we might be the newest in
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canada but we're already ranked number three and minister we're not only the top 50 globally we're
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number 34 globally which is just amazing given the age of the faculty of veterinary medicine here at
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the university of calgary so with this cutting edge infrastructure like this one that's being
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announced today whose groundbreaking we celebrate today as well we're able to do even more more
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training more research and more support for a critical sector of alberta's economy and now
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i would like to welcome dr renata weller the dean of veterinary medicine at the university
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of calgary to speak in more detail about how this additional support will transform veterinary
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education and diagnostics thank you president for the nice introduction and
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welcome minister welcome Jackie welcome all the guests I'm truly appreciative
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that you are here to celebrate with us this absolute milestone in our journey
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together to address the veterinary shortage in Alberta. Now, the veterinary shortage is a global
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thing, right? What I have to tell you that I came here two years ago from London and UK, that is,
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not Ontario, and we have been working on this problem there already. Now, the difference is,
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excuse me, Alberta did something about it. And it was absolutely exemplary in the way
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the ABMA our regulatory body for the veterinary profession here the government and the university
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work together to address it right problem come up with a solution this was absolutely
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absolutely outstanding so thank you very much to everyone who made this possible
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obviously I'm a vet by profession and also by passion so it's very important for me that the
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veterinary needs are met of all the animals in this province so many many people own dogs cats
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horses guinea pigs and other things but vets do more way more than that right we safeguard
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you from anything to do with food so many of you may have had some milk with their cereal this
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morning or an egg for breakfast or are planning to have some steak or chicken for dinner this won't
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happen without a veterinarian behind it so we are safeguarding population health and ever since
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covid hit i think it's very clear to everyone that viruses don't necessarily respect species borders
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or any border geographical border or anything else so what the veterinary profession also does
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is we do disease surveillance we watch and we react and one of those units is housed here
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that's the diagnostic services unit and our director dr jen davis is sitting right here
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this team does an amazing job just doing that for us keeping us safe and obviously
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money is needed for this right so we have to pay salaries vets are in demand and for operations so
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thank you to the government for recognizing the importance of this service and for providing
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the funding to continue with this service so thank you very much for this so 2025 we will need a new
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building i have the building team in the back here right we are on top of this are we i'm i'm
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with uh dialogue and alice dawn we this building will open otherwise we have a bit of an issue it
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will open yeah right uh and that awesome infrastructure is brilliant the other thing
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we need is a new curriculum because what works for 50 students doesn't necessarily work for 100
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students so we have a very dedicated team working on this and this something very special happened
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here i have been through this process twice before in two different countries and you usually have to
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kind of bribe blackmail people into helping you with this because what you need to know is what
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does the market need what are the skills attributes the knowledge that the vets of tomorrow need right
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so we went out to the community and thank you mla lovely for making a lot of those connections for
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us and big thank you to pam jollack for also making those connections to us we talked to
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hundreds of people they wouldn't stop coming they all wanted to talk to us so this connection between
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the university the profession and the society at large it's unbelievably unique to alberta
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seriously i'm the envy of all the other veterinary deans worldwide who are now following alberta
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because guess what they're doing they're increasing their seats and alberta was first in north america
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just saying isn't our motto start something president yeah we are starting something so
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that's what we are doing and we are not stopping there so i'm going to make a sales pitch here
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just saying people minister you have a proposal on the table right and it's budget going on right now
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right um with the best will in the world and building as quickly as we can right team uh
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these graduates won't hit the market until uh 2029 that's the fastest we can do it in the meanwhile
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we would like to contribute a kind of a short to medium term solution we would like to help to
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onboard recruit and onboard international vetnik graduates hey alberta is brilliant i came here
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because it's the people are nice the skiing is good the hiking is good and so and so on the
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university is awesome to do things at so yeah it's going to be popular however even the best
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even the best cow vets in europe will struggle with providing feedlots with the support they
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need because there are i think there are three feedlots in europe but they are not very common
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so what we suggest is that we would like to create a stackable certificate program
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that allows us to tailor really quick market-orientated learning opportunities
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to the individual needs of international vets so you know that proposal right i'm sure you
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have time this afternoon to review that yeah yeah yeah awesome so thank you very much for
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listening thank you for coming uh to join us and uh next milestone when we are going to open august
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2025 right so please come back and thank you all for coming
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yeah apologies search i forgot to introduce you i do it now so i would like to introduce my
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colleague at ucvm an amazing veterinarian who is also the incoming president of the alberta
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Veterinary Medical Association, Dr. Serge Shalhoub.
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And I have to say, I think that was the first time Dean Weller introduced me.
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Thank you, Dr. Weller, for the kind introduction.
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It's such an honor to be sharing the podium with you and all of you today.
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I know my students were very confused, excited, confused, very worried about why I was wearing
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a suit today, and I was explaining them to why, and they were, okay, we get this.
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And also, just reflecting, this is a room where I usually come and teach feline physical
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exams, certainly not the kind of wear I would usually wear, but here we are today, very
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Minister Sani, thank you so much for being here.
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My name is Sir Chaloub, and I am the incoming president of the Alberta Veterinary Medical Association.
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And as you heard from Dr. Weller, I'm also a very proud UCBM faculty member, have been for the last 10 years.
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Today marks a very, very important day for our profession, and also for all our faculty and students who are excited by the needy growth of this critical faculty and facility.
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I am pleased to be joined today also by some ABVMA colleagues.
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Dr. Megan Bergman, our newly appointed Registrar of the ABVMA, and Dr. Phil Buat, our Complaints
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I'm also pleased to be joined by Dr. Pat Burridge, who is past President of the ABVMA,
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and Dr. Burridge was very instrumental in working with government and many partners,
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including the University of Calgary, to secure the funding necessary for this very expansion
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I wanted to thank him greatly on behalf of the entire profession and the University of Calgary
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for all the work he has done for this expansion. A huge thank you. And also for being a mentor as
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me as incoming president. I also want to pass along regrets from our ABVMA president, Dr. Natasha
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Kutryk. Dr. Kutryk really wanted to be here today, but duty called. And this is the life of a
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veterinarian and especially a rural beef producer. For those who know, being a veterinarian out in
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rural practice often as she likes to say you have to hop in your truck and just go and as she likes
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to say duty always before the fun that is also very interesting she does pass her wishes her
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best wishes and appreciation to the government the university calgary and dr weller for all the hard
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work and partnership that allows us to celebrate today's historic moment for our veterinary faculty
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profession and also our province today i stand here humbly before you representing the approximately
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3,800 veterinarians and veterinary technologists, medical professionals in Alberta who are working
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in over 575 veterinary practices across this beautiful province. I can assure you, Minister,
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that they are excited by this historic moment and for veterinary medicine because it represents
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two broad things, which you've already touched upon. First of all, is that this groundbreaking
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represents acknowledgement of the importance of a veterinary profession to the health and
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economy of our province and secondly it represents hope true hope for our
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professionals that help is on the way today is about acknowledgement hope
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and certainty that are hard-working but stretch profession will have more
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well-trained veterinarians to work with and they will also have access to
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diagnostic lab capability that will help them better diagnose and treat animals
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Alberta and the world as you heard from dr. well there are facing massive
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shortages of veterinary professionals both veterinarians and veterinary
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technologists. The solutions to address these workforce challenges are complex
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and unfortunately there is no quick fix, but we know that working together and
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working together alongside each other on solutions for these workforce
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challenges is necessary for the future of our province. Without enough
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veterinarians and adequate diagnostic capacity, our food security management of
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diseases and livelihoods of our agricultural producers are at risk. It
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It takes leadership, a commitment to bettering Alberta, and partnerships at all levels in all corners of the province to work on solutions that involve sustainable level of investment of this scale that have a generational impact on not just the profession, but on all the people of Alberta.
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The Alberta government's investment of over $70 million, you've heard that, is historic and positively impacts the economic future of our province.
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The funding, as you heard, expands the number of graduates from 50 to 100 and provides expansion to the facilities to accommodate the new students and faculty who will be developing innovating approaches to treating our animals,
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conducting necessary animal research that bridges human and animal health and will be working
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collaboratively for Provincial Veterinary Network to ensure accessible care for animal owners.
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As we look to the future today, I must say I stand proud, very proud to be a part of the
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veterinary profession, one of the oldest and one that has shaped the Alberta economy since
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the early 1900s. Veterinary medicine touches everything from our own personal pets to emergency
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medicine, feedlot health, cow-calf production, dairy production, swine, equine, poultry, sheep
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medicine, and even bees. A lot of people that I speak to don't even know that veterinarians are
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involved in that. And of course, we cannot forget the exotic animals, including reptiles and birds.
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Our association and membership take pride in how our profession has been critical
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to Alberta's development and is helping to shape the future health and prosperity of our province.
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Today's groundbreaking recognizes critical role of our professions and plays a very important
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role in the collective commitment to sustainable funding for veterinary education,
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animal diagnostics, lab diagnostic services in Alberta. I want to thank Minister Sawney
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for her commitment to public education and the work being done at UCBM. A huge thank you.
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Our profession appreciates your leadership and we look forward to working together in the days ahead
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as we continue looking for solutions to professional workforce challenges in other words
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our work here together is only beginning minister and actually have my twitter feed my facebook
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my other social media on here that i left no i'm just kidding but our thanks also goes on
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to minister sir gerson who couldn't be here today who continues the long tradition of building a
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positive relationship between the veterinary profession and the agriculture sector we
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towards the goal of a long-term sustainable funding lab
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and ensuring veterinary workforce capacity in rural Alberta.
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that we are excited to work with him very closely
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and also that our work together is also just beginning.
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Emily Jackley Lovely, who needs no introduction
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been a fierce advocate for veterinary medicine.
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and she's been a great friend to our profession.
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This groundbreaking would not have happened without her.
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and we look forward to continue working with you as well.
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This is only the beginning of a triumphant days
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and to hire an exceptional leader in Dr. Weller
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to lead this awesome faculty that I also call home.
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Our profession is proud to have a strong working relationship
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they will get built, I've heard they will get built,
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and veterinary technologists of this beautiful province,
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thank you to Alberta government and the university
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We are now ready to begin the question and answer
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as well as clarifying who your question is directed to.
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Everyone will have the opportunity to ask one question
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Can we please have the first question from the mic?
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Operator, please put through the first caller on the phones.
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But there's no guarantee they'll stay in Alberta after graduation.
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What will you do to ensure these veterinarians stay in Alberta?
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And yes, this program is designed to, and this investment is designed to double the number
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And what we find is when students spend some time at an institution in a city and under
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studies in that program they generally end up staying here and we have an
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incredible demand we have a shortage of veterinarians in the province so just
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being able to have those opportunities readily available for new graduates that
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in itself is very compelling so I'm very very confident that if we have students
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who are going to be studying here at this facility once it's fully open in
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2025 they will find themselves with a plethora of job offers and
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opportunities and and of course I mean Alberta is the best province in this
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country's why would anybody ever want to leave so we