American Nurses Moving to Canada Cannot Fix Your Wait This Year

Canada has spent decades worrying about losing doctors and nurses to the United States. Right now, for the first time in a long while, some of that traffic is running the other way, into a system that added more jobs last year than every other sector combined. American nurses moving to Canada are arriving in numbers provinces can count, and several provinces have been recruiting them deliberately. What American nurses moving to Canada cannot do is fix a shortage this size on their own.

How many have actually come?

More than most people assume. How many have actually come was the question CBC put to health ministries in all ten provinces, asking for data on health workers recruited from the United States since efforts ramped up in 2025. The number of doctors recruited ranged from three in Saskatchewan to 33 in Nova Scotia and 570 in Ontario. Ontario also recruited 2,300 nurses in 2025, and more than 580 health workers have accepted jobs in British Columbia since March 2025.

One health authority shows the texture behind those totals. Damian Lange, executive director of clinical services at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital, said Island Health started recruiting in the United States in April 2025 and has since hired 76 physicians and 102 nurses, 31 of them at that hospital, with another 87 providers hoped for by year's end. Even so, he said Island Health still carries a 15 percent vacancy rate for nurses. That is the whole story in one statistic.

What was one nurse's route to Nanaimo?

One nurse's route to Nanaimo ran through a Facebook ad. Shane Tyson was working in Minnesota at the Mayo Clinic Health System and the Olmsted Medical Center when, during 2025, he grew concerned about the deterioration of health care there and about tighter immigration enforcement. Immigration agents arrested a patient who was leaving a primary care appointment at the practice where he worked. He told Dr. Brian Goldman, host of CBC's White Coat, Black Art, that this was a wake-up call, and that he is married to a U.S. permanent resident born in Bolivia.

He had been noticing advertisements from HealthMatch BC, the province's recruitment service. He registered, interviewed with two health authorities and had two job offers within a week. His British Columbia nursing licence took three months through a fast-track process, and a provincial nomination for permanent residence took eight days. He has worked in the Nanaimo emergency department since January and has since received his certificate of Canadian citizenship.

Who is helping them settle?

Volunteers, largely. Tod Maffin, a digital strategist and former CBC journalist, and his wife Jocelyn Maffin, who works with Spinal Cord Injury BC, run an online community called Healthcare Infusion, started in early 2025. Helping them settle covers everything from licensing to real estate to services for autistic children. Of roughly 1,200 users, 84 have recently accepted job offers, and Tod created a template that has produced 45 communities across Canada.

The ethics came up inside the group. Jocelyn Maffin said she initially worried about poaching health workers from the United States, then noted that Canada has dealt with brain drain in the other direction for years, so perhaps this is borrowing them back.

Why do the national bodies keep raising retention?

Because a pipeline that brings people in while experienced staff leave through the other door does not change the number at the bedside. The organizations representing Canadian physicians and nurses have been clear about that, and raising retention is where both put the emphasis. In an email to CBC, the Canadian Medical Association said that with a shortage of more than 23,000 family doctors, Canada needs to remove barriers to immigration and licensing for internationally trained physicians, and to make it easier for the doctors already practising here to stay.

Valerie Grdisa, chief executive of the Canadian Nurses Association, said her organization welcomes U.S.-educated nurses without seeing recruitment as a long-term strategy, and pointed to Health Canada's Nursing Retention Toolkit, which sets out safe staffing levels, manageable workloads, mentorship and career support. Her argument is that those measures have not been implemented or evaluated consistently enough to know what works, and she tied that to losing up to 40 percent of the nursing workforce by the age of 35. Provinces are pulling other levers at the same time, including Alberta letting doctors apply to work in both public and private care, and targeted redesign can work fast when it is tried, as Calgary cutting a liver specialist wait from 18 months to six weeks showed, as did the emergency room staffing crisis and where to go instead.

When will patients notice a difference?

Not next month. An internationally trained nurse or physician has to register with the relevant provincial college, then find a position, then actually relocate, often with a family. Even where a province fast-tracks registration, the gap between a job offer and patients noticing a difference is measured in many months, and the numbers here are modest against shortages counted in the tens of thousands, so the queue has not shortened yet.

What has changed is direction, and the fact that provinces now treat recruitment as an active job rather than something that happens on its own. In the meantime, the practical steps are unchanged. Register on your province's unattached patient list and keep your contact details current, since those lists are how new physicians and nurse practitioners get matched to patients as they come online. Use pharmacists for minor ailments and prescription renewals, and your province's health line for advice. In the meantime, every route to care that is open to you without a family doctor is worth knowing properly, starting with what a walk-in clinic can actually treat and what to bring with you. American nurses moving to Canada will help eventually. They will not help you this week.

What else are readers asking?

How many doctors have actually moved north?

Provincial figures reported by CBC range from three in Saskatchewan to 33 in Nova Scotia and 570 in Ontario since recruitment ramped up in 2025. Ontario also recruited 2,300 nurses that year, and more than 580 health workers have accepted positions in British Columbia since March 2025. Those are recruitment counts rather than people currently at work.

Is British Columbia fast-tracking American nurses?

Yes. One nurse in this report obtained his British Columbia licence in three months through a fast-track process and a provincial nomination for permanent residence in eight days. HealthMatch BC, the provincially funded recruitment service, supports applicants through both the hiring and immigration steps.

Will recruitment fix the family doctor shortage?

Not on its own. The Canadian Medical Association puts the shortage at more than 23,000 family doctors and calls for removing licensing and immigration barriers while also making it easier for current physicians to stay. The Canadian Nurses Association makes the same retention argument. Recruitment adds to one side of a ledger that is losing people from the other.

How do I get on an unattached patient list?

Every province runs some version of a registry that matches people without a family doctor to physicians and nurse practitioners as spaces open. Search your province's name with the phrase find a family doctor to reach the right one. Register even if the wait is long, keep your contact details current, and tell them if your health situation changes.

This article is general information and not medical advice. If you are having a medical emergency, call 911. For anything non-urgent, speak with a doctor or another qualified health professional about your own situation.

If you need to be seen while you wait for something more permanent, you can compare walk-in clinics near you and see current wait times on Medimap, or browse the Medimap Health Hub for more on navigating the system.