"Justice for Discrimination against foreign trained Dentists by NDEB"
"Justice for Discrimination against foreign trained Dentists by NDEB"
Why this petition matters
E PETITION
For a decade, Canada’s Organized Dentistry has been subjecting thousands of Internationally Trained Dentists (ITDs) to Systemic Discrimination in the name of “bias towards prevention”.
This false and misleading premise of “standards” coupled with a shrewdly crafted so-called self-regulatory system has now “successfully” affected thousands of skilled professionals attracted by the Canadian Government from across the world by leaving them financially strangulated and professionally stranded.
From misusing the $800k of taxpayer money disbursed in 2010 to finding creative ways to mitigate competition, the Canadian organized dentistry is nowhere close to the objectivity, transparency and fairness it claims of – nowhere near. It’s all hogwash and being fed to our gullible lawmakers year after year.
The abuse of self-regulatory privilege reached its pinnacle where one organization (CDRAF) received federal funding, another (NDEB) designed the process, yet another couple (CDA & RCDSO) briefed the parliamentary HUMA committee and still another (universities) are amongst the ones using it – that too in an exactly opposite way to the original premise. Formula for an accountability disaster. Most likely intended to be so.
It is time that the Canadian Government & Media took a closer look at this ongoing abuse of self-regulatory privilege and systemic discrimination and provided thousands of Canadian Citizens a fair environment to pursue their life and careers in.
NDEB is an organization that handles the licensing pathway of all Immigrant Dentist. However, now it seems that NDEB is acting as a Dictator in a democratic country. It has made the pathway complex and with numerous obstacles. Each Immigrant Dentist are facing this issue. Efficient and skilled Dentists are forced to choose alternative career in Canada.
Recently, unprecedented decision was taken of voiding the entire December AFK, 2020. This exam was already postponed from August 2020 to December 2020 due to pandemic. In December 2020 with immense efforts student appeared in exam. Every student reached their exam venue and have followed the provincial covid Rules and have quarantine themselves for 14 days bearings all the expenses on their own. The exam supposed to be held on 16th December but due to inefficiency of NDEB it was conducted for 16th and 17th December. They didn't bother to change the question paper on second day of exam and Students were completely unaware of this .This opportunity for misconduct was undoubtedly created by NDEB . Students have already shown their concern to NDEB even before exam. Immediately after the exam students received mail from NDEB that the results will be delayed for AFK, December 2020 because they are investigating some Misconduct. Similar incident happened with 2nd Licensing exam ACJ as that exam was also conducted for two consecutive days with same question paper. After investigating for two months the result of ACJ exam was declared while AFK was declared void. NDEB doesn't have any proofs of misconduct by students. On the basis of assumptions they void the result. In their Mail they mentioned that, “While the investigation is on-going, the NDEB has determined that the December 2020 Assessment of Fundamental Knowledge (AFK) has likely been compromised".
Students are in utter shock. Immigrant dentists are finding themselves completely helpless, discriminated and depressed. There is no other option left for them. They really want to ask this questions to NDEB via government because they have promised for smooth integration of foreign trained dentists into Canadian health care system for which they used hard earn money of tax payers which is $800k. The HUMA committee keeps reporting government that everything is going really smooth but it's a complete lie. Each foreign trained dentists are suffering and nobody is there to listen to their sufferings. Students want justice from this dictator behaviour of NDEB. This is just the one incident but it has surpass the bearing capacity of any human. There is a list of such events and that’s why we want government to intervene and ask for justification of voiding AFK results. The question to be asked are as follows
Questions are:
(1) Whose decision was it to give the SAME exam paper over 2 shifts / days??? Who is accountable?
(2) Based on the answer to the first question, who should be held responsible / "pay" for it???
(3) Did the "several reports of cheating" just happened now??? Or were they happening from before???
(4) What about the complaints of unfairness over the last 10 years that were never taken seriously systemic???
(5) What about the systemic discrimination and conflicts of interest that plague organized dentistry as a whole? How do you "void" those acts and their impact???
(6) What about the accountability of $800k of taxpayer money used to fund a system that systemized discrimination on the false premise of "bias towards prevention???
(7) Rescaling in paper based exams is one thing. What is the justification in a skills exam??? If 100 identical work samples are submitted, even then 35 will pass. Is that fair???
Chronology of events that one should have a look.
- · The process of integration of dentist has been Established under the 1952 Act
In year 2000. Then after, they stopped integration for 10 years.
In the following article, Mr Brown (the president and CEO of ROI Corporation) and Dr. Raborn (the associate dean and chair in the department of dentistry, faculty of medicine and dentistry, University of Alberta) have clearly mentioned that Canadian dental schools may not be graduating enough dentists to meet future needs based on current enrolment levels
Is There an Adequate Supply of New Dentists in Canada?
http://cda-adc.ca/JCDA/vol-67/issue-7/373.html
- ·In year 2010 – government funded to restart to help internationally trained dentist enter the labour market
Government of Canada helping internationally trained dentists enter the labour market: Canada's Economic Action Plan addresses labour market challenges, helps to improve quality of life.
The quick summary of this article is
-News Release
TORONTO, ONTARIO, September 15, 2010 - The Government of Canada is funding a project that will help internationally trained dentists put their knowledge and skills to work sooner. The Honorable Diane Finley, Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development, made the announcement today.
The Canadian Dental Regulatory Authorities Federation (CDRAF) will receive over $790,000 in Foreign Credential Recognition Program funding for its project entitled Assessment of Internationally Trained General Dentists from Non-Accredited Dental Programs.
- · In September, the Canadian Dental Regulatory Authorities Federation (CDRAF) announced that it will receive almost $800 000 in federal government funding to help establish a national process for the assessment of internationally trained dentists.
The Foreign Credential Recognition Program will provide CDRAF with the funds in an effort to streamline the process currently used to evaluate the competencies of foreign-trained dentists from non-accredited dental schools.
“We are committed to reducing the barriers to the profession and to recognize foreign-trained dentists,” said Dr. Cam Witmer, CDRAF president.
National Evaluation of Internationally Trained Dentistshttps://jcda.ca/article/a138
- · A Pan-Canadian Framework for the Assessment and Recognition of Foreign Qualifications
- · In November 1, 2011 HUMA committee meeting Dr. Benoit Soucy (Director, Clinical and Scientific Affairs, Canadian Dental Association) has presented On behalf of the Canadian Dental Association along with Robert Lees, the manager of registration at the Royal College of Dental Surgeons of Ontario.
Some of the key statements from this article:
"To provide a working alternative, NDEB has been asked by the Canadian Dental Regulatory Authorities Federation to develop, with funding from the federal government, a process to verify the equivalence of dentists trained outside of Canada to graduates from accredited programs. The NDEB equivalency process is brand new and was used for the first time this year. It starts with a voluntary web-based self-assessment designed to allow potential immigrants to gauge their ability to become licensed in Canada before they are committed to moving here. Candidates who choose to seek licensure are assessed on their fundamental knowledge, clinical skills, and clinical judgment in a process that can be completed in less than a year.
Those who successfully complete the three assessments are judged equivalent to graduates from an accredited program and can get licensed in the same fashion. Candidates who fail to complete the equivalency program successfully can apply to a qualifying degree or degree completion program to become eligible to take the certification examination as graduates of an accredited program."
In this article we can clearly see that the original plan which was put forward to provide license pathway first and those who will not be succeeded will be sent to the universities, which colleges are not following at all. Even the timing for completing the license pathway proposed was less than a year but in reality it takes almost a year for completion of registration then almost 3 to 4 years to complete the all exams. To get the exam slot, you have to go through lottery system. In 15 minutes all the slots are getting full. The next chance would come after 6 months only, again you supposed to be lucky enough to get the slot for exam. In this years dentists goes into tremendous stress, mental and physical abuse as well as debt of almost a lac dollars. The whole pathway of license have become totally uncertain.
NDEB has made it completely miserable and luck by chance journey for internationally trained dentists.
Nov HUMA report: https://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/41-1/HUMA/meeting-9/evidence
- · In May 2012 CDA Provides Input to Federal Committee on Labour Issues
“Dr. Robert Sutherland, CDA president, and Dr. Euan Swan, CDA manager of dental programs, appeared before a federal government committee that is studying a potential skills and labour shortage in Canada. CDA was invited to give testimony to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, along with representatives from other professional health associations.
“There is not a shortage of dentists in Canada,” explained Dr. Sutherland. However, he emphasized that access to care, and the urban-rural discrepancy in the availability of dental treatment, is a growing concern. Statistics from the Canadian Institute for Health Information show that 21% of Canadians live in rural areas, while only 11% of dentists practise in these areas. Increasing the overall number of dentists in Canada would therefore not adequately address the issue, unless more dentists practise in rural or remote locales."
Here we can see that, since 2012 CDA has shown its concern for increasing dentists in urban part of Canada. Could this be a reason for indirectly making complex pathways for immigrant dentists, because NDEB is made up of all members of royal colleges. They rule the NDEB.
https://www.cda-adc.ca/en/about/media_room/canadian_dentistry_news/articles/2012/062712-2.asp
- · In RCDSO Elections 2012, lorn ackler one of the RCDSO representative in NDEB, have also shown his concern of increasing dentists in Toronto. In his words, “the problem of too many dentist has become an issue for quite some time and the bottom line of all our dental practise has been affected. A good starting point would be to get together of ndeb members of provincial and federal governments and devise a plan that will see a newly licenced dentist who earned their degrees outside the Canada should be placed in geographically underservice areas for specific period of time. This is one idea to alleviate the problem of over congestion of dentists in Toronto."
This is the thought process of one of the NDEB member, could this be the reason to create hurdles for immigrant dentists and indirectly send them back or to remain in Canada as labours. Please read his manifesto;-
https://www.slideshare.net/natalie_archer/lorne-akler
- · In one of the parliamentary Epetition which has been signed by 1722 dentists in 2019, has shown their concern about stressful life and uncertain pathway created by ndeb and request for intervention by government.
In their words-"The way the Canadian government has defined standards around healthcare delivery is excellent. However, dentistry regulation in Canada is one of the particular areas that are being ignored and significantly neglected; Having used $800,000 of taxpayer money to setup an equivalency process implemented by the National Dental Examining Board of Canada (NDEB), that gives license for the internationally trained dentist to work in Canada does not offer internationally trained dentists with a fair and equal chance of practicing in Canada. It lacks the fairness, transparency, accountability and needs interrogation;
The cost of taking the exams is rising significantly, in spite of that, financial institutions have refrained from giving loans due to the high failure rates; and
The system puts individuals and their families through very difficult times and emotional distress. This leaves many internationally trained dentists unable to live up to their potential. Instead, many end up unemployed, living on welfare and suffering from anxiety and depression.
2019 petition
https://petitions.ourcommons.ca/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-2230
- · We would like to highlight the Resignation RCDSO vice president, who questioned the integrity of RCDSO working pattern. in her words
'There is no written procurement policy to ensure that there is a transparency in engagement of outside providers and to ensure that providers are acting in the best interest of college.
In my opinion there is lack of transparency and openness with respect to dissemination and transformation of information in order for councillors to be informed to make well informed decisions. She also mentioned that RCDSO board culture lacks civility and respect.
Natalie Archer Resignation
https://www.slideshare.net/natalie_archer/natalie-archer-vp-rcdso-resignation-letter
These are the sequence of events that should come in front of government to understand the NDEB,CDA and RCDSO working pattern and what NDEB and this organizations are doing with the foreign trained immigrants and why?
WE REQUEST NDEB TO PLEASE ANSWER THE ABOVE QUESTIONS AND PROVE ANY MISCONDUCT DONE BY STUDENTS OR RELESASE THE DECEMBER AFK, 2020 RESULT.THIS IS OUR HUMBLE REQUEST TO CONSIDER US AS A HUMAN AND ONE OF YOU.
#fight for basic human rights
#end-dental-red tape
#truth-for-a-tooth
#no discrimination.