Post-Secondary Education Minister Roger Melanson is defending the decision to provide international students with Medicare as an investment.
He adds with many other provinces offering this type of program, this announcement helps make New Brunswick more competitive.
“This is important for our provincial government to be able to support and offer medical services to these students as they are studying, as they have proof they are studying in a post-secondary institution, a college or a university,” says Melanson.
He adds this is truly worthwhile.
“We’re doing every bit of effort to bring newcomers to our province,” says Melanson. “We need to grow our population, we need to have the skillsets to be able to fulfill the jobs that are not only available today but will be available in the future.”
With many provinces in Canada looking to grow their populations through attracting international students, this helps New Brunswick remain competitive.
“If we can keep them here after they’ve studied, because they’ve studied in our institutions and they’re part of our social and economic fabric of our province over that period, hopefully we can convince them to stay,” says Melanson.
He says the estimated cost of this program is between $275,000 to $325,000 annually.