FMRAC Agreement on National Standards
The CPSO Council endorsed the FMRAC Agreement on National Standards that establishes entry to practice requirements for medical licensure in all Canadian jurisdictions.
CPSO does not rely on third parties to assess qualifications/credentials and does not use the application through Physiciansapply.ca. Applications are submitted directly to CPSO through our Portal. We conduct assessment of all credentials in-house. This allows us to eliminate additional fees for applicants, provide a much quicker turnaround for document verification, and maintains our expertise as leaders in credential evaluation across Canada and worldwide.
In November 2009, College Council endorsed an agreement developed by the Federation of Medical Regulatory Authorities of Canada (FMRAC), which, upon implementation, will establish a national standard for licensure in all jurisdictions.
The need for common national standards arose from the labour mobility provisions in Chapter 7 of the Canadian Free Trade Agreement (CFTA), which enables unrestricted mobility between provinces for eligible candidates that are licensed to practise medicine in Canada. The CFTA became law in Ontario in December 2009 with the passage of Bill 175, which requires the College to license applicants that hold a certificate in a Canadian jurisdiction if it is equivalent to a certificate issued by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario. If an equivalent out-of-province certificate is restricted, it permits the College to impose the same restrictions on the applicant’s certificate here.
The goal of establishing national registration standards for both full licensure and restricted licensure is to eliminate the inter-jurisdictional differences between registration qualifications. This will ensure that applicants across Canada meet acceptable minimum qualifications.
Implementation of the Canadian Standard
The FMRAC agreement addresses entry to practice requirements for full licensure as well as provisional, or restricted, licensure.
As a first step towards implementation of the full agreement, in February 2010, Council agreed to implement immediately the FMRAC requirements for full licensure, defined as the Canadian Standard in the FMRAC agreement. The Canadian Standard requires that new applicants have the following qualifications in order to be eligible for a full (unrestricted) license to practise medicine:
- have a medical degree from a medical school listed in the FAIMER’s International Medical Education Directory (IMED) or the WHO’s World Directory of Medical Schools (WDMS) or a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree from a school in the US accredited by the American Osteopathic Association Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation; and
- be a Licentiate of the Medical Council of Canada; and
- have satisfactorily completed a discipline-appropriate postgraduate training program in allopathic medicine and evaluation by a recognized authority; and
- be certified by the College of Family Physicians of Canada or the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada or the Collège des médicins du Québec.
The registration qualifications outlined in the Canadian Standard do not differ substantially from Ontario’s current registration requirements. However, implementing the Canadian Standard as well as implementing the CFTA has led to some changes in existing CPSO registration policies. More information is available under Registration Policies.
