Provinces pledge $194M to Sask. veterinary college, but capacity stays the same

Jeffery Tram · CBC News

· Posted: May 22, 2025 8:12 PM EDT | Last Updated: 8 hours ago

Three occidental provinces renewed their committedness to veterinary acquisition successful a backing announcement Thursday astatine the University of Saskatchewan.

Saskatchewan, British Columbia and Manitoba person agreed to supply a combined $194 cardinal implicit the adjacent 5 years to the Western College of Veterinary Medicine (WCVM) successful Saskatoon. The backing volition enactment operations, training and objective services.

The fig of pupil seats astatine the schoolhouse won't increase. Dr. Gillian Muir, the dean of WCVM, said she recognizes determination is simply a shortage of veterinarians successful Western Canada, but there's conscionable not capable country to judge much astatine this time.

"We don't person immoderate space," Muir said. "We're afloat up. We've got 88 spots and we person 88 students and we person a precocious request for those seats."

Under the renewed agreement, Saskatchewan volition money 25 seats, Manitoba volition money 20 and British Columbia volition money 40.

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There volition beryllium nary spaces reserved for planetary students. Dr. Inoka Gamage, a Saskatoon veterinarian, said that is simply a missed opportunity.

"There's nary specified programme different than the continuous acquisition programs aft becoming a vet," she said. "But to get the licence here, we request immoderate benignant of bridging programs."

Gamage immigrated from Sri Lanka and present owns Fairlight Veterinary Services successful Saskatoon. She said her session is often afloat booked and forced to crook distant walk-in patients unless it's an emergency.

"It's a precise hard situation," she said. "But if they locomotion successful with a really, truly sick animal, we cannot crook them astir and say, 'go away.'"

Gamage said the assemblage is nether immense pressure, with much pets, less vets and excessively fewer options for specialty care.

"It's hard," she said. "Sometimes you consciousness truly down astatine the extremity of the time with each the burnout and the workload."

Gamage said a semipermanent hole indispensable see expanding the fig of vet schoolhouse seats, gathering bridging programs for planetary graduates and increasing specialty attraction services crossed Saskatchewan.

Still, for Gamage, the information remains the same.

"The fur babies marque a quality successful our life."