Toronto med school dean won’t condemn human rights abuses while taking Saudi cash

The University of Toronto’s medical dean accepted $18 million from Saudi Arabia to train its students, amid a severe shortage of training spots for Canadian doctors.

Source: X

The University of Toronto’s medical dean accepted $18 million from Saudi Arabia to train its students, refusing to condemn the dictatorship’s human rights abuses amid a severe shortage of training spots for Canadian doctors.

During a House of Commons health committee meeting on Thursday, Dr. Patricia Houston, vice dean of medical education at the Temerty faculty of medicine at the University of Toronto (U of T), revealed her institution provides residency and fellowship programs to 450 to 500 international physicians a year. All of these physicians return to their home countries after becoming credentialed as a doctor in Canada.

Houston said the Temerty faculty provided 459 physicians with training spots this year through the Visa Trainee Program—a requirement to become a doctor in Canada. Each student is charged $100,000, with their home countries paying the bill. Houston noted that U of T accepted approximately $45 million from foreign countries in the Visa Trainee Program last year, with 40 per cent coming from the Saudi Arabian dictatorship.

Conservatives grilled Houston about receiving money from a dictatorship accused of human rights abuses, including political executions, beheadings and killing foreign journalists. Still, Houston said it was not the job of the faculty to “enter the political arena.”

“So the Tamerty faculty of medicine does not have a view as to whether women should be allowed to drive,” Conservative MP Matt Strauss asked.

Houston repeated that it was not up to the school to “put forward a view on that.”

The Temerty Faculty’s Women’s College Hospital, however, notes in its mission statement that it intends to promote “revolutionary healthcare” for a more “equitable world” and “advance health for women and women in leadership.” Strauss noted that the school’s values contradict the values of the dictatorship from which it “happily accepts funding at the expense of the Canadian healthcare system.”

Conservative MP Burton Bailey repeated the point that the funds accepted by the University of Toronto through the VISA Trainee Program amounted to “blood money,” and Houston refused to condemn the regime in Saudi Arabia. Conservatives raised concerns that the school could be “compromised” as they forsake the school’s mission statement in pursuit of funding from the Saudis.

Conservatives summoned the U of T medical faculty lead to the committee after learning that many foreign-trained Canadians and internationally trained immigrant medical professionals faced barriers to practising medicine in Canada, including capacity constraints in mentorship programs and residency positions.

Conservative MPs argue that the estimated 1,117 training spots Canada gives to Saudi students through sponsorship deals from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia could be filled by internationally trained Canadians and immigrants who want to stay in Canada and help its overwhelmed system.

Houston said the funding the med school receives from the visa program goes toward funding the university’s education and research programs, but Conservatives questioned how much of the funds go toward administrators and executives. Houston committed to providing the committee with a breakdown of how the funds are used.

Conservative MP Matt Strauss asked Houston if U of T would accept internationally trained doctors who wish to stay in Canada if the Saudi funding instead came from “other sources.” Houston claimed the school would have the capacity to train more students if it received provincial government approval to expand residency spots and additional funding.